It enabled us to stop paying rent month after month and build some equity in a building while producing extra cash every month.

Federal tax credits for 20% of eligible project costs (excluding acquisition) are available for income producing buildings. 

As far the fha stuff i don't think owning another piece of property is going to help qualify at all unless it's income producing then it might you would have to ask the broker.

Most cheap contractors can't produce what you are looking for, but they "might" know how to do the job, however, they couldn't generate a material list and give you a price that separates labor and materials.

So by this definition I feel my home can become an income producing asset for my family must faster if I were to pay down the mortgage that much faster and get renters into it.  

I am a Financial Analyst and have the skills to manage the finances as well as do forward looking analysis to evaluate the financial impact of the association's decisions.After getting the hang of the book keeping items, collecting fees, blah blah....I began to (per advice received on BP) get comfy with the declarations and by laws and making sure we are compliant with the governing body of documents.That is where I ended up on the phone with the insurance agent. 

Youth can be used by way of paying off a mortgage in 25 or 30 years and then owning the income producing property mortgage free and providing significant cash flow for another 30 years of life3.

That means that unlike web-based systems (Top Producer, Salesforce, Maximizer, etc), I have complete access to my data whether or not I have wi-fi / cellular data access.  

He's a top producer here in Dallas, specializing in the Uptown, West Villiage, Park Cities areas.  

But with FHA financing being very lax, I was wondering about valuing duplexes based more on what they're producing then comps.