We talked about an aggressive paydown at a rate of $5k for the next 6 months to make the deal sweeter for the next person, but renting it would be preferable to that I believe since I can get a higher return on smaller development projects at a burn rate like that. 

Quote from @Brook Burns: Thanks so much for the recommendations!

I'm the single breadwinner for my family (2 kids) so I don't know if I'd have the time and energy to both run this rental and manage my work so I can reach the income level to handle the bigger mortgage comfortably.I feel like this chance for us to have a rental property with positive cash flow won't come often so I really want to explore it.

Its all about the heavy brush with Manzanita and other dense brush full of oils that burn so hot and fast.. thats why in many areas in CA they have control burns..

So, hot Zip codes, don't touch or you'll get burned.

Money, time and energy are interchangeable in real estate.

You'd be a dang fool to waste your energy or effort's on ANY US standard rental more or less Sec8, are you kidding me?! 

If you can't shape yourself into a solution maker the cold hard truth is this isn't for you and you'd be better focusing time and energy elsewhere. 

Sadly, the place burned to the ground back in 2016.

If you get greedy and put #3 in front of #1 or #2 you can get burned like any other market.