If there is a dirt floor in the basement, be aware that the excess moisture can rot out the floor from the underside and can be more prone to pest infestation from burrowing. 

Seems pretty reasonable to me as a host who pays my cleaning crew all of the cleaning fee and much appreciated as a customer who has been blindsided by excessively high cleaning fees.

If you choose a city that has a lower cost of entry point but a nice level of rental cost you could use an FHA loan that requires 3.5% down and live in 1 unit for several years while the other three tenants pay for your mortgage and bills and hopefully generate you excess cash flow to bank into your next down payment fund.

Yes, you can use sources like rentometer and Zillow rental manager to try to comp similar rentals and see what the market appetite is for a comparable unit.

I called every lender in my county and asked questions so as to determine what their "appetite" for lending was. 

If you are asking for that to add me to your buyers list, it seems kind of excessive.

Either way, I am providing a solution (shed), but they need to figure out what to do with excess items if the items can't all fit in the shed.

The "excess" suspended losses will pile up on your books and can be used to offset passive gains.

The plan would be to rent out other unit(s) first, then see if any friends/family want to rent out excess beds in my unit.

We were able to get Liability coverage through the excess/surplus market from a specialty carrier.