Quote from @Alexander Oak: Hey man, I recommend Jackson Sincerbeaux.

Seeing how little of principal is paid off in the beginning of the loan cycle, my urge so far has been to throw what I have as extra payments chipping away at that mountain, but I’ve been also thinking lately if that’s a wise practice.

We'll both chip in equally for the costs and expenses of the acquiring the property (looking to buy an apartment with a value between 500k-600k in Chicago) and live together for a few years in it.

If you're looking for cash flowing multi family properties, you'll probably be looking at the Class C areas of Sacramento, for example, Del Paso Heights, Oak Park, South Sacramento, etc.

I am looking at Oak Park, Ferndale, Hazel Park areas as a starting point.

Cedars, Bishop Arts, Oak Cliff? 

North Linden, South of Main, Vassor Village, Woodland Park, MT Vernon, Milo-Grogan, Franklinton, Merrion Village, Hungarian Village, Southern Orchards, Driving Park, Olde Towne East, Franklin Park, King Lincoln, Old Oaks, Livingston Park are all but not limited to some areas in Columbus, Ohio I think will gentrify quickly and make for great long term buy and holds.

Realtors can chip in here for past history and future trend as I am no expert.Second, $6000 annual cost (towards negative cash flow) is but a small fraction of $80,000 additional monies that otherwise would go towards DP just to break even. 

Our cabinets are oak and in good shape, the layout wasn’t changing so it was worth it and really brightened the space. 

I haven't explored this much but I think it would be an interesting strategy (this is assuming you don't need the cash for the next ~3-5 years minimum):Invest the whole amount in something like VTSAX or the S&P500 or whatever big blue chip stocks a lender likes and pull like half the amount out in a loan or some kind of line of credit.