Is paying down a mortgage the best choice?

[Edith TenBroek]

So DH and I are looking at some long term investments. We hope to start buying property in five years or so. We will be 50. First we need to pay off some debts and save some money. DH has a full time job he loves, and I'm a homeschooling work from home mom. In five years I will only have one homeschooler and my time will be freer for property management tasks.

We would ideally like to have rentals to help us with income during retirement. Would the best plan be to take all of the rental payment and put it towards mortgage (after saving a set amount for repair emergencies and or vacancies of course) so we can pay them off more quickly and have retirement monies at 65? DH's income is plenty for now, and he has a pension, but I want to work on ways to increase our retirement income and this seems smart!

Anything I'm not thinking of here?