Good luck to you Ryan! We all have to do what is best for us and our families. If you have your backup plan in place, you will do just fine. I found this forum a few years ago just as I was starting to go to school to get my bachelors degree in IT. I think I must have had a bad real estate day so I signed up to go to school. Four years and 80K later, I have decided to stay in real estate but to change my business model. BPO's helped me keep my bills current while I worked on school. I have been blessed to have that revenue stream. Now that I have graduated (cum laude by the way) I am not so concerend about cranking them out for such low fees. It is more dollar productive for me to ramp up my business again on the retail side. I read the broker stats for my area and there are people who are not nearly as smart as they think they are making lots of $$ in real estate. The key is to get out of bed each day and work-- but work hard! If you are not passionate about something you have to change what you are doing. For those of us who have been used to making a good income at BPO and REO work in the past, it is hard to see the $$ slipping away. We have to always be thinking about our next move and planning for the future. For some that will be in RE and for others it will be in another line of work. You have to do what you love and love what you do!