If you are an agent in NYC, what are the yearly costs to keep the license active?

Outside of investing actively in real estate, another route you could take is becoming a private / hard money lender.

Generally for tax "activities" are reported by "trade or business." 

I don't hear from them that they're actively searching for my next investment.

Maybe if they were short term rentals of some other more active business model you might get away with it.

Do you want to be active or passive?

So, I have total respect and gratefulness for active duty and veterans for their service to our country. 

If you want to "personally utilize and keep" a property and don't care about the location or the price, then my first assumption is you want a place to make meth or some similar activity.  

You might want to do that anyway and not listen to me.Though I see it on this board all the time, lending is not a do-it-yourself activity, Reese.

An active ownership in a property or portfolio of real estate is much more like a small business than it is like a passive investment.