If you have and are sure you are still underwater, continue to monitor and pay down debt so when the day comes that you can get out from under it, you are ready to take advantage of the opportunity.

All depends on Your Global Debt to Income.

I have saved $30,000 dollars and have no debts accept for $19,500 student loans that I don't have to start paying off until December with a 4.5% interest rate ($220/month).

Thats all great and will make you a lot of money, but where wealth is built is in the amortization of the debt you put on the property.

It should also show you other valuable financial metrics such as cash on cash return, full debt service coverage, and even IRR/NPV.

So for me I like free and clear assets and continue to pay down any and all debt.

Ehhhh probably not so much.And then there's of course the standard biggerpockets.com advice to always be mortgaged to the hilt and ever more in debt, which would mean a cash out refinance to pull ~$200k out and buying something else.

Properties are always cash flow positive and foreigners aren't as addicted to pointless consumer debt as Americans, so they don't really need a lot of qualifying income from a day job... or in theory any day job.10/10 would recommend as clients. 

However, I still have a large amount of debt from my training to deal with and am looking for strategies regarding real estate.

@Eugene Lee  those rules were spawned out of the Great GFC... not germane to todays markets in most areas.you can though still buy in areas were there is more housing than people to use the housing and find those rules apply and even more.. those are what we call cash flow markets that's all they are all they will ever be ( in most likelihood) so if your going to invest there only reason to do it is to hit those 2% or better metricswhere we reside on the West coast we generally look for break even and make our big bucks on having our tenants pay down our debts and of course appreciation... you have most folks that live in the non appreciating markets and their mantra is  ( cash flow cash flow appreciation is only luck its not investing  LOL)  and you have those that have gotten stupid wealthy buying west coast assets that double or tripled in value in a 10 year time frame.. take your pick..