The rehab took 5 months and I did 90% of the work myself, saving $30k but losing a lot of time.

With inflation driving up day-to-day expenses, saving enough to buy your first home is more of a challenge.

There's a reason that people try to buy properties off-market and that is because you can find sellers who care more about terms than maximizing returns.So start with a conversation: you already presumably have some rapport since it's your landlord and you've spoken before.

What are your long term goals (eg do you want to buy another house) and do you have a large savings set aside for unexpected expenses? 

With affordable property prices and a growing rental market, it can be a great option for long-term cash flow.If maximizing short-term rental income is your priority, a home closer to Nashville could be worth the extra cost.

If you want to think about it as a math problem, it’s all about where you put your time to maximize returns while also factoring in what you enjoy doing.Picking the MarketI’m the kind of person who gets analysis paralysis.

I do well, at least enough to go on vacations as a family, put money into high yield savings accounts, max out the ROTHs and add to investments when I can with money saved in savings and checking accounts.

Hey everyone, I’m just curious if any of you have any good links to blogs about saving money on food costs for a family.

The increased cash flow would make such a substantial difference in your daily life that not paying it off would be foolish.Outside of that, I can't see many reasons I would take a 15% tax hit to save 4% on a mortgage, which is really only effectively about 3-3.5% depending on your tax bracket.

Do the math and you'll see it doesn't make sense.The best way to invest: increase earnings, reduce expenses, and save.