Pay down mortgage or Buy more homes?

[Jared H.]

I'm new to the real estate, in the military and just purchased my first home (3bd/2ba/2car garage) with the VA loan on Oahu for a little over 500k and it's estimated rent is $2,400/mo. I understand this is not sustainable with the mortgage so we are going to pay $50k on the principal to make it self-sustainable.

We should be able to save approximately $50k/yr combined for the next 5 years safely.

Should we pay 40k/yr additionally on the home principal to get it paid off in under 10 years to earn fixed income and sell when we want to retire/start a business? Or should we (after setting aside 30k for repairs/vacancy & paying down 50k for sustainability) continue to pull loans and buy in better markets for more rentals?

We're both young (22/23yrs old) so we'd appreciate any advice from you seasoned guys