However my understanding is that exceptions can be made if unexpected life events happen such as job relocation, eminent domain, marriage, divorce, changes to family size, deployment, imprisonment, bankruptcy etc. 

Explore my personal favorites, Set For Life by Scott Trench or The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, for invaluable financial insights.3.

If you are building on your own existing lot, you are sacrificing privacy for sure, but if you are comfortable with that in this stage of your life its a good way to maximize what you already have than trying to go to market and spending over $1M on a decent duplex. 

Confidence BoostWhen you have a coach in your corner, it can significantly boost your confidence.

These companies, run by Kevin Bupp, Brian Spears, and Joanna Bupp, and how they buy up "mom & pop" mobile home parks, jack the rents up immediately to gain the most profit in the shortest amount of time with no care of the low income, fixed income, and elderly that were living in the mobile home parks comfortably.https://www.wivb.com/news/investigates/akron-mobile-home-residents-fight-back-against-out-of-town-owner/1779504663  That's how life works.

Investing there way UP, via leverage, to a place in life where they have compiled millions in equity position so they can consolidate down to the "Dividend" phase of life. 

@Paul Cijunelis  thank you for this response Paul, well I firstly got interested in CRE when one of my high school teachers told me about how he does it and that kind of started my interest, I really love CRE because I've noticed it's a very lucrative and risky business like high risk high reward, but not just that I really love seeing a bunch of properties being brought back to life with renovations.

Here's a POSSIBLE, or even common, view of how it goes: 1) Launch: They gush about how appreciative they are that we revolutionized their business and life. 

Selling now could free up your equity, giving you the option to diversify into other investments or markets that align better with your new life on the East Coast.

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.