I myself wasn't an optimal tenant when I was in my younger years.

We are busy with good enough incomes that we didn't need to over-optimize, but these are still great investments either way.

I’m a member of online RE groups and others may partner if they find the numbers to be optimal.

Optimize that based on expense ratios and your risk tolerance.I’d say just stick with it for the 3 years if you can brave the W2 job for that long.

As far as leverage goes, personally I had an acquisition phase,  maintain/optimize phase, then payoff and strategic exit phase.I've paid off a bunch, but all for specific reasons. 

If Bend is the optimal place for that, then stellar! 

Someday, I will likely hire and train my own property management assistant so they know "my way" of doing it vs. a canned method that may not be optimal for my class of rentals (typically "Class C"....sub $30K units). 

I.E. if the property to purchase is $1m, down payment is $200k, and I have 3 investors putting in $50k each totaling $150k, and I use $50k of my own money, what are some optimal ways to setup the payback of the $150k outside money back to each investor, in the best/quickest way so we can roll into more properties at the fastest rate or deploy the money elsewhere, quicker?   

As you know Minh, there is no free lunch (but there are good deals and smart in investments to be made :)  You are optimized for MF, adding value, working the loans, and getting cash out.

A really helpful tool to choose your optimal amount of leverage is a sensitivity analysis, which will weigh how much leverage you use (0%, 10%... 90%) relative to adjusting 1 other item at a time, such as appreciation or rent growth rate etc...