I know there's A MILLION ways to finance so I'm interest in hearing what YOU would do if you were me.If pulling money out of the personal residence is your own source of capital smarted play is to refi the house on a 30 year note.

My question is: would it be smart to take my rental income which I get in advance and pay down my mortgage in bigger sums or should I just continue to pay the normal monthly payments?

I'm a medical device engineer myself.

plan plan plan  “Predicting” something has to come with a timeline, or as any smart predictor knows, one will be assumed.

If your time is valuable and you have other ways to get the money, partner with smart investors to help you grow it with low effort from your end.

We realized that building a home in a place that we were not going to end up in was....less than smart.

At this point my wife and I are with you i think renting it would be the smarted financial move and we are only a week into advertising it for rent but we are hoping that works out.

That's smart. 

You are smart in not wanting to lease, if you loan or purchase the panels they can be appraised as part of the home value if you decide to sell later on. 

@Jennifer RysdamI guess I better check my smart move account before I get into frustrating situation like you did.