@Dave Blackman This really depends on your cash flow goals, how happy or sad you are with your job and when you want to fully rely on passive income or atleast supplement your income. For example, if you are really unhappy with your job and want to completely replace your income, let's say you need $8k per month and each property fully cashflowing yields $700 per month, you will need to own 11 properties free and clear between now and time you plan to quit your job. If you think that you still want to work but in a different environment where you have lesser stress (e.g. becoming a teacher and earning half of what you currently earn), then you may only need 5 properties above to reach your goal and remaining coming from your fully paid off properties. You can use several methods to pay off your loan faster including equity optimization technique and own these properties free and clear within a defined duration. Much of this also has to do with buying right. If you consistently buy properties with built in equity you could play the equity against each property to fully pay off your properties. So, buying at the right price becomes extremely important. So, it all depends on several factors but the above should provide you some broad guidelines.