Real estate investment end goal

[Micah Petri]

Hello BP community,

My name is Micah I am 23 years old and I am new to this community. I have invested my money stock for the last 5 years but I am looking to start the journey into real estate. I have a million questions about this business and I am gaining knowledge everyday thanks to my hour commute to work and BP podcasts. I see this forum as a good opportunity for me to soak up information from experienced professionals. 

One of my main questions pertains to real estate rentals and I believe that the answer would help me in designing my investment strategy. 

When investing in rentals, from what I have understood, the idea is to use others money to create cash flow for yourself, this is fantastic, but when do you focus more on paying off your units rather than making more deals? If ever? In example, If I have 100 units with around 10k cash flow a month, would it be smarter to start paying off units and make more cash flow from the tenants or would it be smarter to continue making deals and building the cash flow that way? I understand people have different goals, but in this scenario let's pretend you've already reached financial freedom at 10k cash flow but you want to continuously grow your business and make as much cash flow as you can. Would there be a stopping point on deals and redirect focus to paying off loans? Is it smart to pay units off before 30 years or is the idea just to soak in the cash flow and and let them pay themselves in 30 years? 

Sorry if this is a rookie question and I understand there are a million variables but if someone could share their expertise based on experience it would greatly help the design of my strategy. Thanks.