I personally would go that route as it would probably be less expensive. 

If you are setting aside funds for capex, taxes, insurance, or other expenses that don't occur monthly, transfer those funds to Savings each month and hold them there until it's time to spend them.

2) What's the average rent for each property and how many bedrooms?

Real estate investing is forgiving; the average person can still make money even with some big mistakes.

An expensive fix that could've definitely been avoided

Rent is decently expensive, but whenever I booked the stay, the owner mentioned he was trying to sell the unit.

By understanding the local market and organizing a strong support network, you will unlock varied opportunities for growth and long-run success.If you’re interested in learning more about how to get started or want to discuss specific opportunities in Phoenix, feel free to reach out to local experts or explore educational resources tailored to this market.How many foreclosures are there today vs 2010 or historical average in Maricopa county? 

But ya have to make some educated prognostications in life.Add this to the information your processing - What your talking about doing is eliminating around $4000 or interest expense (which is deductible anyway so really could be a real impact of eliminating $2800 or so) of debt in exchange for paying over $10K in capital gains tax (don't forget possible state gains tax as well).  

You likely only made a down payment of 3-20% ....but you still get to write it off on the full value across 27.5 years.So 400k/27.5 = 14,000 ish a year of a write off where during the year you didn't need to incur an actual expense, no cash outflow. 

Often little cute items impress as much expensive items.