Most people are purchasing property at nearly 50% debt-to-income, living above their means, using property as a trophy and not an investment, and the appreciation they do accrue is wiped clean in selling fees and interest to the bank.

Our main goal this year is to pay down the debt that that we have accrued building the portfolio to where it is.

My next move is to do a home equity line of credit (or loan) and pay off my rehab debt I accrued, and use it on a DP for prop #3.

If this is truly a loan suspension (no interest accrued, no credit effects, in writing, etc.)

The pause button is essentially pressed, or in more technical terms (as interest was likely accruing and tax and insurance still being paid out of escrow, the quickest impact will likely a slight increase to escrow) but other than that your payment stays the same for years 7-30 and then the 6th year (when you didn’t make payments) gets added on in year 31.

Here,mother’s could be code violations with fines accruing every day that are not recorded as lien yet, but will still attach to the property.  

What you suggest here relative to splitting profits and expenses seems reasonable and pretty standard, although your team may not come into agreement with a buy-out without capturing accrued equity.

While inflation is destroying the value of the debt you hold on that property to the debt owner, it is inflating the value of the asset that you hold, benefits all accruing to you.

So, instead of 10 properties five years from now, I could potentially have 11 properties five years from now (accounting for present value of the $18K accrued over five years and the average cost of my properties).I'm perfectly happy reducing my property count 10% every 5 years if it means that the properties I do own are passive Investments vs active businesses.  

As a newbie, I hope you don't mind me asking a question— how much capital did you accrue prior to that first property?