A good attorney in real estate law could probably tell you in 15 minutes what the legal effect is but it might be more complicated.

One technique I followed when I was starting and only had few properties like you was to gather all the cash I could to one place.

Principle reduction is much more complicated due to the tax benifits part and is a topic for another post.

Granted, I know there are scenarios where the responsibilities would get more complicated, such as move outs, filling vacancies, evictions, etc.

However, I think having real property makes that more complicated and might require going through the court system and hiring an attorney.

The complicated scenarios can be fascinating but if you're not already a highly successful RE investor you should probably put more time into the investing side and less into the asset protection side.

I made a spread sheet to keep track of which properties the locks were on, Tenant at the time, etc..It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.

We use different techniques depending on severity.

I prefer it over a double close which gets a bit more complicated to orchestrate.

The reason that I say 25 months is at that point you will have 2 years of landlord experience under your belt and will easily be able to use your old house rental income onto your own in order to refinance you new house with a bank.I think you are making this more complicated than you need to not to mention the expense that your grandmother would incur.