To pay off rentals early?

[Austin J Gurule]

My real estate goal is to cash flow at least 10k a month from rental properties. I am currently only 23 years old and am soon starting my career (Humbly speaking it will provide me good money). I know there's pros and cons with leveraging and paying off mortgages early. However, as of now my current plan is to use the rental income and cash flow from my first rental property (house hack) and yearly savings to pay that off as soon as possible. Once I would buy my second rental property I would then use the cash flow from my first rental (more cash return) and second rental along with my yearly savings I have planned out and repeat the process.

I feel like paying off the mortgage quicker gives you more cash flow per month than leveraging as my personal goal is to get the most from cash flow. I would love input or opinions on if this sounds like a sound strategy. ie. I live well below my means and save more than half my income. 

[Frank Jiang]

Paying off the mortgage is highly unlikely to have higher velocity than leveraging up and buying more property.  The math is very basic.  The rate of return you get from paying off a mortgage is equal to the rate of the mortgage.  On a rental property in this environment, we're talking 3.5-5%.  Not very good.  You should be able to easily beat that by buying more property.

That said, the reason you would want to pay off as opposed to lever up is about safety and risk.  If your risk tolerance is low, then it makes sense to pay off early.  This is a perfectly valid reason.  But to think your cash flow will go up faster from paying off a low rate loan is just wrong.