But even if its half of that you have spread out your risk and can change things up whenever you want.

Is it better to own a few houses free and clear if you have say 10 houses or should you spread that debt (and equity) over the 10 properties??

Since here in San Jose it is such a tough market (I'm guessing), along with really high spreads houses going 400k and up!

Some are 1-4 points and 9-12% so they keep a small interest % spread but primarily make points.  

Not a bad simple business.Now if you took that $1,000,000 in equity and spread it across 33 properties with 70% LTV the payment on each one would be about $350, so the cash flow would be $250/house or $99000 annually for a cash on cash return on equity of 9.9%.

Otherwise other residents drag it out of the dumpster and spread the critters to other apartments....

Then I can setup some social media pages, get some business cards ordered, and simply spread them out.  

There wasn't even that big of a spread on it but it was $199k which is a price point that is super hot in this area because most cash investors can afford this price point, but the retail buyer pool under $350k is  competitive with little inventory. 4) And yes, as @Amit Patel mentioned  if you can submit an offer and have the seller's agent represent you then you could potentially get in that way if your offer makes sense in all other areas.

Ask yourself what the implications of this could be....Look at the spreads on high yield debt over treasuries or P/E ratios on low volatility, high dividend paying stocks - bottom line there is a massive bid for assets in the US that can generate yield in a global negative interest rate environment. 

Id try to focus on locations where there is a large price spread between rehabbed and non-rehabbed homes....and where the rehabbed homes sell relatively quickly.