the benefit is that you can run multiple investments via your self managed investment vehicle.  

Also, If you pay off your mortgage early and truly own your house the ability to leverage decreases and you forfeit the ability to invest that money in other vehicles that would ideally bring in better returns than the money saved through paying down your home.

I am pretty sure I take all the deductions I'm due and I've vehicles such as as solo 401K, self-directed IRA, Roth, etc. but I think I might be missing out on larger-picture strategies for investing and tax savings.

I thought I would present this situation to the BP community and ask their advice and opinion on the whole concept of paying off debt versus using Real Estate as a vehicle to help you reach your goals.

This particular property doesn't work for me as I am not looking to do a heavy rehab no matter the price.

I was told that crowd funding is ONE of their vehicles (whereas before it was their ONLY vehicle). 

Professionals with decades of experience and very impressive track records do all the heavy lifting for you.

you EAT the decisions of the PM and have liability for the results.With absentee ownership, you may have no choice but to use a PM, but 19yrs being 2hrs , 120 miles away, I created a local team to do the heavy lifting and I did the screening and decision making - - seems to have worked out well (see profile).

There are decent vehicles in almost every driveway.

As a responsible landlord you should use every vehicle available to screen applicants.