No hurricanes... yet.

I'm glad you've found an area that might work for you. I assume you're looking specifically at stand-alone houses... not townhouses, condos or apartments right?

With your rental properties, are you trying to pay down the mortgage as quickly as possible? As in, you pay off your primary residence and then put that same amount on Rental Property #1 until that's paid off, and then put your income + rental income from Property #1 and #2 into paying off #2 as quickly as possible... and continue? Or do you basically keep the mortgages as a tax deduction?

The reason I ask is that if you keep paying them off, eventually you could not worry about mortgage rates to make money.