[McLovin]

Being 5-8 years out, expanding on your real estate is a possibility, but that highly depends on your individual situation. For example, how much you have to put down, and what the cap rates are in your area. (Another is the realistic possibility of significant market rent increases and/or property appreciation, but if you are in Oregon, that's probably not likely, so you need to look at present cap rates).

I would strongly advise against buying a business. Why? Because most businesses for sale are dogs and don't make any money. I'm talking about the businesses that are for sale at business brokers, franchise service type businesses that advertise in magazines, etc. I've seen a lot of businesses bought and sold over the last 30 years and the vast majority have not worked out anywhere what was expected. It ends up being twice the work for half the money (if you're lucky), and then you're stuck with it. Not what you want if you have retirement expectations any time soon (I've seen many successful sales too, but they tend to involve "real" businesses, and thus millions of dollars to buy, and/or insider deals).

There's lots of ways to get where you want to go, but how to best get there for you is very personal. However, in my experience and what I've seen from others over the decades is that building equity in income generating real estate works very very well, over time. There are just a lot of advantages that other methods don't have (tax benefits, stability, tenants pay down your mortgage, rents tend to rise with inflation, over time (like a 10 year period) real estate value does intend to rise, etc). The downside is it isn't nearly as easy as it looks, or as many think. Done wrong, one can very easily end up in bankruptcy.

Sounds like you have a lot of great options! It isn't very helpful and sounds cliche, but the real answer is you have to figure out and do what works best for you, personally.