One marks up larger jobs, but won't say how much.

You want this to be your backup plan if things take longer than anticipated, you do not want to dip into personal credit cards so i would use a heloc to help with down payment but try to keep a nice available balance on a heloc as your insurance policy. 

I can make more money spending the equivalent amount of time in my day job.

Other risks, the contractor walking off the job, a storm hitting and delaying the project for weeks, someone breaking into the home and stealing stuff (which happened just the other day to a client of mine), a squatter, or drunk driver driving into the house (happened a lot at my old job as a firefighter lol).

The value of the hotel is based off of how well it's being operated.My advice would be to get a job in the hotel industry.

I'm not sure if we can like to articles on our own websites here, so to be safe I'll just suggest the IRS web page, which does do a pretty good job of explaining the basics: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc510The main thing to know if you're going to claim business miles is that you do need to keep a log of every business trip. 

We've got strong job growth (tech, healthcare, education), stable population growth, strong rental demand, and plenty of value-add opportunities in multifamily.

My goal is to continue to acquire more cash flowing rentals to eventually leave my day job and just self manage the rental properties. 

Can they be more passive than having a 9-5 job?

I just like to list places and keep them posted so I get a chance to talk to nice new people, like you.