It took me about 6 months to recover from the mental and physical exhaustion.

Our faculty adviser is an investor and a leader of a local real estate club.

Starting out, it can be really helpful to jump into a Kool-Aid drinking corporate mentality and get the training before making your next move.Best of luck! 

Things actually work the other way around from a typical contractor's mentality thinking they are financing the client when in reality they are expecting a client to finance the contractor's business. 

Get data on insurance claims, flooding, etc.My personal view is that leadership within a city/municipality needs to have more of a 'we all rise together' kind of mentality. 

The goal with paying it off would be to jump the mental hurdle of owning a property free and clear, start an LLC and transfer the title into that LLC, and then to have a property that we can HELOC against in order to have the flexibility to make cash offers so that we can begin making LLC purchases more easily rather than titling in our own names.I'm certain that plenty here would advise to continue rolling the money into new properties, rather than to pay one down, since owning the house free and clear would provide about half the cash flow that we could get from down payments on two new properties, however my wife (in particular) and I both like the idea of simply owning one property outright and then using the above strategy moving forward. 

He is a good guy with a residential tenant mentality whose business is struggling.

Here 's a mentality shift that's necessary for you. 

John: *Makes mental note* Okay, you're a business woman in real estate.

She looked like a model (early 40's) but was mentally unstable.I think her Google review of me is still on my business page and it has the image of a German Shepherd lunging.