You'll want to explore this with your accountant and see what side of the fence they are.What is more a concern to me is your plan to let the property sit for a couple of years and then move in. 

I personally also bought a couple two flats to get started and I always looked at it from an overall expense view. 

I worked adjacent to a couple of rehab teams on the admin side.

We often would offer concessions such as no security deposit or do half off first months rent or even a discount off the first couple of months.

Based on what you've said here, I'd probably rent it out as-is for a couple years and then 1031 in to a higher quality area. 

Research led me to a couple of videos of former ND players coming back to build development into the area.

I started out with the other guys, getting a couple LLC's done but became disappointed with them because of response time, and conflicting information.

We were being transferred to that area and went up to look at a couple different homes in the area and that one came up that day, and we made a full asking offer immediately.

I've been analyzing a couple deals in the OH market recently to get some practice (my research tells me it's one of the few decent cash flowing markets).

for example, you have the lehigh valley in PA just a couple hours away from you.i'll also say this.