Please reach out me if you have access to value add and distressed real estate opportunities.

The network and opportunities that evolve out of it are a great recipe to get your portfolio going. 

He just wants to show up at the job and have the team do the work and push a vision.

If we take the opportunity cost of money approach, if you have $40k in cash you could either put it on a deposit in a secure bank, earning around 5% per year in a very passive way.

The other posters have mentioned some great locations, so I'll just stick to Aurora and tell you more about it.What I love about Aurora is the number of hospitals, restaurant scene, and proximity to the airport, and jobs (easy access to downtown and DTC). 

I sustained back injury on the job.

I believe it would increase overall investment demand with our  landlord/tenant laws being significantly more landlord friendly than CA, property taxes not reassessing on the sale, consistent job and population growth, proximity to Lake Tahoe, and temperatures that are not as cold as Tahoe in the Winter but are cooler Sacramento or Las Vegas in the summer. 

The first will require you to have another form of cash flow to sustain your lifestyle and future investing, commonly being a W2/1099 job.

Given that you own the land outright, there is definitely an opportunity to make a deal work here.

It’s not a secret that real estate investing requires a keen eye for opportunity, a dash of risk-taking, and an adventurous spirit.