Selectively picking new information that fits a pre-conceived narrative is called confirmation bias.

Pomona is one of the few decent areas in LA County where you could conceivably house hack your way into a monthly housing payment of less than $500/month buying off the MLS.

With this logic pattern in mind, find, borrow, create, beg, checklist for every conceivable process in your business (over time).

This alone will trim 5+ years off your amortization .Combine accelerated payments with a variable-rate mortgage and increased payment size and you can conceivable cut your mortgage amortization in half during your first term (though in the GTA, this could make you very house poor} saving yourself tens of thousands in interest.    

Someone who bought 3 years ago could have 25 or 30% newly gained equity.....they could conceivably do the cash out refi, and use it to repeat (acquire another rental).

If you were looking at Chapel Hill and could conceivably have purchased a prop there, my guess is you have enough capital/financing to purchase at least two properties in a more lucrative market.

We did that for a year, I worked tons of overtime, and with that we were able to buy a couple more properties and then look to getting our "real" home that we live in today.I found that getting rid of all of the pre-conceived notions of "I've earned this lifestyle" was what allowed me to really focus, and that made it even juicier when we bought our new primary... it wasn't a small step up, it was like flying to the moon!

If the area is great you could conceivably start selling off some of the condos, use that revenue to pay down your debt, retain enough to control the HOA, and have a small set of debt-free condos at the end of it.  

I'd be open to buying a 1BR, but conceivably return on a 2BR is higher, which might put you in the $600-700k range.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it will achieve."