Going back to this logical angle, I don't buy it, but I think it's still great thinking, and looking at EA in the right way to try to find answers.
The part I don't buy is the idea that he was ever really in real estate, to the degree that it provided him extra opportunity to put CM somewhere. He was never a realtor, so he would not have had special access to properties that a realtor or broker would have had.
Based on his lack of veracity, imo it's questionable that he truly ever made even a penny in anything even remotely tied to real estate. We only have his word for it, and that's less than reliable.
Is it said that anyone in his family made a living as a realtor or broker?
Maybe he had imagined "sell real estate" as his next career, once he was fired for theft.
There is another way to make a living in real estate and that is to own rental properties and act as a landlord. It doesn't require a license in my state. Which is why I'm hoping LE check out all the property owned by his parents and determine if any were vacant at the time Christina disappeared.