This leaves investors more interested in preserving wealth and guaranteed annuity-like CF.

@Jordan Moorhead, Asset preservation is a fine company, well grounded and has a strong national footprint as evidenced by the above recommendations.  

You are saving at a pretty fast pace, you will hit your goal soon enough that preserving capital should be a higher priority than growth, in my opinion.

Outline your experience - doing BPOs, REO management, coordinating contractors, preservation companies, reporting back to the client, sufficient capital (because you'll need to front those costs and be reimbursed later), etc.

You want to make sure no grandfathering clauses exist for current owner and when a sale happens to you the new owner that goes away.Also be aware that any changes to the exterior or even maintenance  issues likely have to be approved by the local historic preservation committee and it can be VERY EXPENSIVE and time consuming. 

I also have a few in mind whose names I've seen in the historic preservation agendas.  

My thoughts were if SF could postpone any of those issues (okay, mainly preserving cash/reserves and keeping my DTI low) w/o counting against the conventional limit, then it would be worth hustling now and trying to find them.

But the key here is that, by leveraging your money via financing, you will preserve as much cash today (to use to buy more homes) as you possibly can.Paying off a home, to me, makes zero sense if your intent is to grow your portfolio.btw: While it was a great time to buy 4 years ago, there is always a deal to be had out there if you stick with it. 

Therefore we invest in long term appreciating assets to preserve our cash flow. 

Here is where I would go for the good ole fashion boring rental property that you can slowly build wealth, preserve it, and can retire on.I like the areas following the 35 corridor because of the growth towards Austin.