@Carlos Garcia can you afford to keep them as rentals?

A lot of people will disagree with this and say cut the cord and evict them, but I think it's worth trying to keep a solid tenant.

I'd love to chat, keep it up!

You are well structured to use the debt snowball to pay down houses quickly, and appears from what you have written that this would be in keeping with your current strategy.  

The Deed of Trust for the seller financing would be a "reconveyance without satisfaction" once I sold the property, as I would like to keep the loan and the seller would like to delay realizing the gains.

Trying to keep the total cost below $1.5M.

I also recommend that you do not use the property for personal use, or at least keep any personal use to a minimum, and definitely below 14 days, as personal use will dilute the benefit of the cost seg. 

Also, with the investor putting down $10k upfront, does this typically mean they're more likely to keep up with the mortgage payments?

I've taken all the major options to consideration such as book keeping, accounting, taxes, payments, maintenance/trouble calls, price of software etc.At this point, I'm looking for the most balanced option that will best help protect myself and my assets.

I never do it behind hard money and I always keep my terms short and my LTV's low.