Personally, this market also strikes the balance of being somewhat close to home, while remaining far enough to force me into building scalable relationships and business processes.What I can offer: I am continuing to learn about real estate and am several months away from the capital necessary to finance my first deal.

No harm in that.I paid off a bunch but the lowest rate was 6%+ and they were seller-financed or commercial,  representing more pain and risk than what you most likely have.Last consideration is if you have a small balance loan but are running into conventional loan limits of 4 or 10. 

My condo under construction in Tulum I paid 30% down and the developer is financing me for the balance of 70%.

Otherwise, if I try to balance my time between work and real estate, it could take me a year or so. 

(*You could also hire your own appraiser, just for your own edification and for some degree of checks and balances.

We kept the bank balances very low and documented everything we could. 

It's a clause in most mortgages that once the loan has defaulted, you can accelerate the loan to make the full balance due now instead of over the full term.

What system do other people use, to make sure data transferred from the PM to QB and making sure it balances.

You'll get opinions all over the spectrum on exactly where the balance is between paying down debt and using cash to invest, but in my experience, when someone uses words like "horrendous" and "crushing" to describe their debt, the one and only priority should be paying it off as fast as possible.I think it's a mistake to overly focus on increasing income. 

The deduction would go on schedule E as travel costs.If you are traveling to look at properties - the answer it different.Another reminder is that you may need to report to the IRS any account balances held abroad that is in excess of $10,000 during the year.