@Chris Kay beleive you can do DSR loans without a job as they qualify the property, not the borrower.You'd still need 20-25% down though.That's where you have a decision:- Pay down the mortgage, setting yourself up for a future refinance to free up your VA Entitlement.OR- Save up for your next acquisition.Only YOU can make that decision as you have to be comfortable with the increasing debt-load risk and the additional time to manage everything.

It seems to me that there multiple deflationary trends in the world right now but I don’t see a politically acceptable exit of all the accumulated debt in Europe and Portugal without using inflation.

The main drivers1) Local Inventory2) 10 year treasury(macro)3) Personal Debt levels(macro)4) Real Unemployment(not the unemployment number but real white collar job loss ratio'd to part time jobs). 5) Industry proliferation(can't tell me a tech or finance hub moves like a health hub).To tell me #2 will derive from the same inputs as it did in Sep/Oct, I'm willing to bet it won't.

Taking the higher of the two, that's 52k in debt service for 12 months.

I always make sure that the properties are cash flow positive, but the large bulk of the money I make from them is from the other items (appreciation, debt paydown, tax benefits, etc). 

I think what you describe is pretty much standard performance for rental properties if your not paying cash and I am just assuming your putting max debt on them to try to get your return numbers into your criteria..

Probably not, but I felt better having that debt paid off. 

Your 1031 will have to be for the net selling price, not just the amount you clear after paying off any debt. 

If it's a matter of a quarter point but the more expensive debt is with a bank that offers better other terms like amortization and LTV, and they have a rock star loan officer, I'd go with the slightly higher interest rate product.2.)

I've been using Stessa for years... struggling keeping the connection with my bank and I've had several instances where months worth of transactions disappear and when they're able to restore them for me, they are all uncategorized, etc.