@Ryan Turian, depending upon your market, your "house hacking" strategy can work to heavily subsidize your own cost of housing, and in an ideal case, you "live free"....allowing you to invest the rent/mortgage you would have been paying in other REI.

The amount of available credit you're using on revolving accounts is heavily weighted.• Length of credit history: -- How long ago you opened accounts and time since account activity.• Types of credit used: -- The mix of accounts you have, such as revolving and installment.• New credit:-- Your pursuit of new credit, including credit inquiries and number of recently opened accounts.There are plenty of great resources on this site to do your own due diligence.

And it is like making an investment with a guaranteed 5% return in my case.OTH, by paying off the mortgage with the cash flow, I feel like I would be too heavily invested in my properties and should diversify.

Turnkeys are a really good way to earn some cash flow, while not having to do much of the heavily lifting.

She also had no choice but to succeed.As you know - no one can know the real you so our advice shouldn't weigh too heavily on your decision.   

I do have folks wanting to buy but burdened heavily by 50k or more 1 was 150k in student/credit debt and with as large as 20% interest rates.

Every big ticket item (long vacation, stylish automobile, new furniture, HVAC replacement in our home, etc) would have required either months of saving and planning and/or dipping heavily into savings. 

Areas that have 5+ vacant homes or business per block are usually something to stay away from, but areas that are heavily occupied are almost never below class Chope that helps.If you're looking for deals in Indianapolis, I'd be more than happy to assist

I'm heavily inclined to agree with you @Tim Miller.  

Medical can be great but make sure doc's practice isn't heavily dependent on clients with government benefits to pay for services.