Approaching a transition within my RE career and looking for advice.
Hi everyone, I have been a broker in NC for just over two years now, early 30's, previous career was having my own marketing firm primarily working in the Real Estate market. Since making the leap into Real Estate I have really taken to it and its been a whirlwind of growth. I started doing general brokerage and marketed myself as an expert in luxury homes and new construction in within new home communities. I put a lot of time into learning that market and was able to make a name for myself fairly quickly. One thing lead to another and I was offered my current position which is exclusively representing a high end luxury home community full time. I have been at that for about a year and a half now and it feels like I have had 10 years of experience crammed into 12 months. This position will be wrapping up in the next 6 months as we sell out the majority of the community and I am facing the decision of whats next. I am trying to do my due diligence before that day comes so I can make a confident decision in my next direction. I essentially have it narrowed down to three paths and I would love to hear others thoughts within the industry and any insight from those that feel one direction may make more sense than the others. If you are still with me then let me break my options down for you haha...

1.  Commercial RE with my present company - My interest from the beginning was to eventually end up in Commercial RE. The company I am with has told me when I wrap up they have a desk waiting for me if I want it. Its the leading firm in my area and affiliated with NAI. The BIC has been a great mentor and was actually responsible for making my current position happen. The positive would be me and my wife can stay put and we already know the market. The downside is the commercial market here is nowhere near as good as the residential and it will inevitably be a long slow startup. I sold $15m last year, for perspective the top commercial guy in the region did about $11m, most of the commercial guys are doing $2-5m. If I go this route my pay will cut off for probably two years and then I will most likely never get back up to where I am which is scary.

2.  Commercial in major city - I have been loosely offered a broker position with CBRE in a major city with an absolutely booming Commercial market. Downsides would be we would need to pick up and move, my wife is in real estate as well and so we would both be starting from scratch in a new market. Positive would be jumping all in to a leading commercial company and potential to be on a focused team which would expedite my startup and getting some money rolling. Much more long term growth. Big downside would be neither of us are big city people and I would be working out of a downtown, definite lifestyle change.

3.  Team up with wife in Residential - Lastly I have considered teaming up with my wife in residential to focus on luxury properties as well as trying to take on some smaller developments as that seems to be the direction local developers are going and I enjoy that business. Positives would be much faster startup time to be making money again, I think me and my wife could create one heck of a brand in the area for luxury listings and buyers, we get along great so we could work well together and it would make for a nice flexible lifestyle I believe, long term income potential is easily double what it would be doing local commercial. Most of our luxury focused brokers are making $15-30m. Downsides would be obviously not doing commercial which has always been something I wanted to get into, potential to not have much luck in the small development world which would be disappointing as I would not want to only be doing general brokerage, I am scared I may get bored...but then again the less stressful lifestyle may make any negatives worth it.

I would love to hear any thoughts those in the industry may have on my decisions. If anyone has faced similar transitions I would love to hear what direction you went and how you feel looking back on it. Any input is much appreciated!
[{"id": "dzxwect", "text": "Honestly if residential is going so well for you (I'm assuming you made around 500k off 15m in sales) then why stop? \n\nIf you are so interested in commercial then why not become a commercial investor instead of broker? \n", "replies": [{"id": "dzxxn6b", "text": "One of my long term goals is to start a private equity group for small scale development projects in my area and obviously I can do that whichever route I take, most likely faster staying in residential.  I will still essentially be starting over if I stay residential as my current position I am contracted to a single client, the developer.  The big advantage in residential I will have though is I am now more experienced when it comes to development and new construction than probably 95% of the agents and with my background in marketing if I partnered with my wife I am pretty confident we could have a pretty decent brand established and have steady income again within a year.  That compared to commercial where as I stated most people in my market are not closing anything outside of a few leases their first two years.\n\nTo answer your question of why stop?  The only response I have is I guess my road map from the start was to eventually be in commercial, when I took on this development position I guess I had always viewed it as a nice kick start both experience wise and financially to prep me for the slow commercial start up.  I am now seeing some of those big advantages I now have in residential over my competition.", "replies": [{"id": "dzyrhzm", "text": "If you want to jump into commercial reach out to The Shopping Center Group,  maybe see if they're interested.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "dzzlw84", "text": "You\u2019ve had good success in luxury residential, and you could do really well by teaming up with your wife, and you don\u2019t have the experience or viable market to go commercial? I\u2019ll shoot you straight: \u201cDance with the one that brung ya.\u201d Don\u2019t miss a beat, use your experience, leverage then boost the husband/wife brand, bank your dough, make some moves sooner (within 12 mos) on your next dreams of development. Commercial brings you to zero, commercial in a new city brings you both to zero with no grounding. -CRE Broker Consultant \n", "replies": [{"id": "dzzqixt", "text": "Great points. I appreciate the straight shooting. ", "replies": [{"id": "dzzqt8c", "text": "Any time. ", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]