Stop being lazy, call your agent of choice and get a quote.

If I plan to own real estate investments as a viable source of income in my later years (hopefully sooner) would becoming a realtor be beneficial to me?

You are offering them a choice and offering to give them additional value for the increase.

You obviously cannot control the driver next to you, so those 2 are your only choices.

We also, have our personal goals of increasing passive income to live a life of more freedom and choice.

The work-around legally is a few choice sections of USPAP that allow for flexibility and give the appraiser a get out of jail free card, but I've gone on way too long at this point to explain all that.What I wanted to end with is that appraisals are better than they ever have been.

Also even though gold is a commodity which can always hold value, the federal reserve dollar is backed by a promise, not something as tangible as gold but definitely not gold so gold is “golden” and a great choice!!!!!

That could be your dad or anyone else, but family will usually be your first choice.

Rather, I think this is more about discretionary investment income that you have the choice whether to just let sit in a savings account earning next to nothing so that you don't miss an opportunity when it presents itself. 

Poor choice of wording on my part.