use all of the money, with the exception of emergency funds, like 5k and use it to buy up a rental.

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Developers Eye Office Buildings as Residences Daily Real Estate News | Thursday, August 20, 2015 A new trend is emerging in downtowns: Once empty, obsolete office buildings are increasingly being converted into apartments, the CoStar Group reports.

I then traded up to an old Mercedes SUV with 200,000 miles and ran it up to 320,000 before selling it.

You'll want an emergency fund, no consumer debt, and some savings.

Even if you don't use it for anything it makes for a great emergency fund.Cheers,Jeff

I would treat it as a lesson learned, one that most investors go through early in their real estate career.Construction attracts many deadbeats, since the barrier of entry to many trades can be so low (ie painting).  

I made a lot of profit trading in general merchandise and by the time I decided to move into manufacturing, I had accumulated enough capital.

I just finished a Dave Lindahl book on Emerging Real Estate Markets where he talks about many of these things.

I my beginnings I was an general contractor's "helper", fine tuned the trade and became an HVAC contractor.