Your goal is to build a passive real estate portfolio (we can discuss what passive means to you), so while I don't condone throwing $100k into a deal without even a basic understanding, alternatively doing so will teach you far more lessons than reading a book will.  

The trick is to know the market and have a solid strategy for your approach.

My only add is to the replace your wife's income part.

My overall goal is to obtain these units and have them long term into my retirement for cash flow.

Another option is to sell one or two of them to pay off your LOC and then keep just one.

We have one property managers whose job is to be our eviction Laison across the whole portfolio.

The general consensus is to sell it.

First step is to hire a designer. 

My goal for this year is to flip my first property.

Is it more difficult to switch property managers than it is to onboard without a current PM?