Ultimately it's not about their marital status so much as their ability to pay the rent.

That allows you the ability to choose and deny as you please because of having better applicants.I'd trust your gut, who was friendly, nice, had their stuff together.

It seems to me that you have a great potensial to achieve your goals as long as you always push the bar for your ability and desire to save.

You've got a leg up with her real estate knowledge and ability to pull MLS comps!  

The lender wants to have the ability to sell the home if the mortgage isn't paid.

If you do things wrong you can lose a lot of money.Your choice is a personal choice which will depend upon your attitude towards risk and your financial ability to handle any surprises.

I retired with the ability to live in an A neighborhood but chose not to spend that much money.

Cash Pros: no mortgage, ability to take it all out in refinance, can leverage (finance) House 2 b/c House 1 is all cashCash cons: the cash is temporarily (or permanently) gone, not leveraging the most out of your dollar, if the property doesn't refinance where you think it should - you can't get all your cash backLoan Pro: potential to maximize your leveraging ability, tax incentives, experience in going through the loan processLoan Cons: holding costs/mortgage payment, acquire debt, interest rates rising make it tough to refinance (for the time being)-----Depending on the amount of capital you have, I might recommend the BRRRR strategy.

Yeah, probably a bad analogy and I'm not saying it just to argue, but at some point, competition lowering the prices for renting the nice places has to weigh on the rents (and ability to raise them in the future) of the mom and pop units, right?

Even if the payment goes up it's mostly towards interest (a write-off) and I don't know anyone that doesn't like lowering their income tax.The only other thing I'd ask someone (loan officer) is if doing a cash-out refi would create any large challenges around your debt-to-income ratio and hurt your ability to buy a subsequent property.