The legal limit for interest on a mortgage is 20%; therefore hard money lenders are well within their right to charge 10-15% in exchange for the risk they take and the benefits they provide.

I think you would benefit from reading Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss.  

The added benefit of this process is that you can also have your attorney sign the public records as "Nominee Trustee" before assigning yourself as the "Trustee" once the Trust has been established.

If you sell you will loose quite a bit in agent fees and you might never buy again in a prime location like Mountain View, You seem fairly young and have long investment horizon, if you are able to hold on to this long term you will most likely reap the benefits like its doing for @Maria D.   

Just curious if the primary is more important as i move forward trying to use leverage in my benefit.

But the fact is that even if you have never taken the depreciation allowance tax benefit the IRS will make you pay it back when you sell. 

@Christine Krizenesky not everything is about optimizing returns numerically.

You'll receive rental income and tax benefits, gain experience, and possibly see lower entry costs and lower risk.

The only big benefit of delayed financing is that on homes with a lot of offers, having a cash offer puts you to the front of the line.

Selling a property only to pay down another has no benefit financially.