Hey all. Longtime lurker, first post.

Going to try and keep this short as possible. Looking for some advice from your guys viewpoint coming from architecture side of things.

General info
Age: 32
Location: Chicago, IL, US
Background: Grew up moving all over the US, being exposed to history and different cultures 
Education: Studied communciation with a focus in business— left with one quarter remaining 
Current career field: 1stdibs/Decaso involved— I collect/sale the very rare designer furniture from different periods
Skillsets (mostly self-educated): Very strong reputation for my eye/knowing what makes design great or terrible, spatial awareness, thorough understanding of furniture manufacturing/materials/design process, sales/marketing, business in general, customer relations, entrepreneurship 

Lacking a lot of knowledge when it comes to the software side of things, but I am not scared to tackle this.

Looking to jettison from the current field into something that is more macro and has higher profit returns/market growth. Something where my skillsets/knowledge can be applied and interests collide.

Within real estate and architecture world seem to be the answer and a great fit. Interior design, textile design and creative consulting I have been around and while being cool does not seem to have high ROIs. 

With that being said, having hung out on here (and talked to many in the architecture field) is seems its best to avoid going to school for architecture in this day and age especially when combined with being 32.
M.arch for length of time vs investment return does not seem worth it for my situation.

I have also done a lot of investigative research into development and investor forums for their perspective and seems like most architects end up working under their wing while these guys rake in the profit and are in actual control of the projects.

If you guys were in my position is there any routes or suggestions you can think of or suggest I follow? Should I even consider a masters in real estate or the like for connections? I even looked at one year portfolio schools.
I am a firm believer the best careers/jobs come from just networking, not necessarily a piece of paper. However, I acknowledge that I could stand to “sharpen my sword” by further developing my skillsets.

Some ideas I have ran into seems to be:
-networking into/around real estate development or development design build projects (just getting my foot in the door with a firm)
-get involved with prefabs as it seems you do not need to be an architect to design these
-???

Really appreciate your industry insight, experience and knowledge.

Most of the people I know and hang out with are all in finance/tech/software so I don’t have anyone else to ask, especially since I am in a very niche career field currently.