what would  the best way to invest money from previous employer  401k so that I could use it in REI 

I think the question itself emerges from a belief that one either has to be an investor (and do creative investing) OR be an agent and focus all of their time and energy on traditional agent tasks.I see the license as just one of several tools we employ to monetize leads (which in our area are extremely expensive right now).My wife and I own a brokerage, but all of our 32 agents across Texas are first and foremost creative real estate investors, marketing to distressed sellers, wholesaling, flipping, taking properties down Sub2, etc.But when you do that kind of marketing to distressed sellers, sometimes you run across situations where the best solution for the seller (and best chance to monetize that lead) is to just list it.... either a traditional listing or a short sale listing (no, you don't have to call banks either)... or even an owner-finance listing.I think there a lot of myths about being an agent... some of which are more true if you are caught up in a more traditional brokerage where they stress getting a high volume of traditional closings.Common myths are:-- I'll have to show buyers around:  Not if you don't want to!

Even if it had park owned homes you would have to develop a system or have more local help especially with full time employment.  

You may be in an area where many people work for the same company lets say that has in that area traditionally employed a great number of people and then suddenly laid off a high percentage of their work force and perhaps allot of people in your area will be motivated at that particular time to sell their house and move on with their lives.

So number 3 of the exception says:(iii) a regular salaried employee of the owner of real estate who performs property management services with reference to real estate owned by the employer, except that the employee may only manage real estate for one employer; So I'm not very familiar with legal jargon, but if I understand this correctly I could act as a property manager if my friend hired me as an employee, but I could only manage for him.

 #3  You should ask them for specific landlord and employment references if you have not already.    

keyword = SHOULD :)  if you do things correctly there is no need for double closings which quite frankly, is a real newb way of doing businessif you're not 100% about this or that, employ the services of a real estate agent/broker/realtor.  

The owner is currently employed.  

Lots of rules but basically you need a project that will employ enough people to qualify.

Though something always comes up I currently am not working and have no promise from an employer of future work.