That makes it harder to pay off faster or refinance to consolidate.

If financial independence is the objective, then the income from your rentals has to meet certain requirements:Rents and prices need to rise faster than inflation.Operating costs must stay low.

The city has been putting energy into airport expansion and some hospitality projects, which should help bring more jobs.Hammond has been heating up with prices moving past $200k and selling faster than last year.

Here’s a professional perspective on your options, considering both strategy and risk:Option 1 – Rent your primary home (house hack your existing property):Pros:Generates immediate cash flow if your rent covers your mortgage and other expenses.Keeps your home appreciating in a market that may continue to rise.Builds experience as a landlord while keeping your current neighborhood and lifestyle.Cons:You’ll need to manage tenants or hire a property manager.Risk of vacancy, damage, or difficult tenants.Your cash flow might be modest if your mortgage is high.Option 2 – Sell, downsize, and invest in multi-family or smaller homes:Pros:Frees up home equity for multiple investments.Potentially faster path to portfolio growth and cash flow.Diversifies risk by spreading investments across properties.Cons:Transaction costs (selling, buying, moving) reduce immediate capital.You lose current home appreciation.Larger learning curve managing multiple rental properties.Key Considerations:Your risk tolerance and lifestyle goals: Do you want to stay put or scale quickly?

You can see these charges added into your payoff demand by line item.

This changes the game.Example: Studio Unit (fully furnished, permits, foundation included)1) Market Rate, No IncentiveBuild cost: $200–225K | Market rents today: $1,500–$2,000/mo | NOI: $12.6K–16.8K/yr | Yield: ~6–8% | Payback: 12–18 yrsSolid, but long payback and moderate yield.2) With Charlotte’s $80K Forgivable IncentiveEffective basis: $120–145K | Program rent cap (8 yrs): ~$1,100/mo → NOI ≈ $9.2K/yr | Yield during affordability: 6–8% | Forgiveness adds ~$10K/yr “earned income” | Payback to recover gross cost: ~11–13 yrsThe subsidy de-risks the deal—guaranteed inflows cover build cost faster.3) After 8 Years (rent cap lifts, market rents w/ 3% compounding)$1,500 today → $1,900 | $1,750 today → $2,217 | $2,000 today → $2,534Year-9 ROE after incentive: $200K build / $120K net basis → 13–18% | $225K build / $145K net basis → 11–15%You exit affordability with a permanently lower cost basis and market-rate income.

At most, it favours the hotels in the city and its surroundings, charging higher prices.

But you can get a 3-4 bedroom house, rent out the other rooms while you live there and will probably get further ahead.Look at your current expenses and see what you can do to pay down your existing debt as you mention it is restricting how much you can borrow-see if you can increase your income and work on saving more (and spending less) to get to where you need to be faster.  

I’ve been seeing a lot of momentum from investors using DSCR loans to expand faster than conventional financing allows.Pairing DSCR with bridge loans seems to be helping many keep deals moving without big capital hurdles.Is DSCR part of your scaling strategy this year?

My biggest concern has been making sure I buy in areas with a solid tenant pool, so I really connect with what you said about that being the first thing you look at.Curious — if you were starting again today, would you still focus on higher-quality markets even if it meant fewer doors up front, or would you mix in more “affordable” properties to get the ball rolling faster?