I used a simple loan calculator, and my debt service would be 11K/month on income of ~16.5K/month (+5.5K cash flow/month), which dwarfs the cash-flow freed up by purchasing an owner/occupied in California and saving on rent. 

Take 50% of the rent and count that as going to expenses(taxes, insurance, maintenance, capex, vacancy) then deduct your debt service(mortgage payment if you finance) from the remaining 50%. 

I owe roughly $2,500 in credit card debt and once I’m free’d from it, my plan is to save save save for my first rental property.

So in order to get full tax deferral you'd have to deal with debt replacement on that. 

Assuming you own your own home that means you can pick up 9 of these bad boys IF your credit, income & debts are all good & meet the traditional Fannie & Freddie guidelines.

My wife and I are in our mid twenties in a suburb of Seattle making a combined 90,000 dollars and we have no debt. 

Here it is: I just graduated from college last spring with a bachelors in science (not business related) and I have about $16,000 dollars in student debt.

Auction is the process of selling the property to pay off the debt (lien) on the house.

Get pre approval by the bank with good rates for a conventional loan with a 30 year mortage to keep my debt to income ratio low.1 1/2: set up seperate bank account for all rental property fiances.

Get pre approval by the bank with good rates for a conventional loan with a 30 year mortage to keep my debt to income ratio low.1 1/2: set up seperate bank account for all rental property fiances.