This is maybe the honeymoon stage for me (less than 1 year). :)

Quick notes about me: I was born and raised in NYC (Queens, Long Island) Current 2-family rental is in Queens Village I work full-time at a growth-stage technology company in NYC on their Strategy team My goals are to get 10 additional doors under my management in the next 3 years. 

After holding costs, foreclosure cost, taxes, attorney costs, and staging costs, even at a 40% LTV (a totally FAKE LTV that was sold to investors) I'm told that I will be lucky to recoup my principle.

My wife and I staged the property ourselves and saved a few thousand by doing so.

I have a lot to learn to get that stage and this will be first of many posts and thank you BP for giving me a platform to better understand this industry!

At this stage I think we'll probably just go forward with things the way they are and try to get the property paid off in the next 5 yrs so that we don't have to worry about the fluctuating interest rates.This is why we started on such a small scale after all... so we could learn the ins and outs with minimal $ at stake.

At this early stage and being across country, I just haven't built the relationships in order to pull that off yet.

That, combined with our approach to pricing, staging, and presentation, all have resulted in very high-quality tenants that exactly fit our target demographic.  

You are absolutely within your rights to determine at this stage of the process to deny this applicant since there is no signed lease. 

Another thing to keep in mind is if you need to refi to get money out in a couple years in the future for your next down payment there is a big possibility you will be doing so at a higher interest rate.If you pay more down you are not reducing what you are paying monthly just shortening the number of payments in 25-30 years.It looks to me you are in a growth stage and having a stable predictable property with more debt (paying off at a regular rate).