Sometimes I can find how many units are in the building online but never the count for each type.

With the current rates (near all time low), this would reflect a negative cash flow at the 50% rule, but very near cash neutral if counting the principle paydown. 

Unit count is fun to talk about & can give an idea of the sophistication level of another investor, but getting caught up in comparing them has little to no value.

That may be, but the rental income on a property you just recently purchased typically isn't going to be counted towards income as far as the lender's concerned, until after a fixed time period has passed, as determined by the lender...

There will also be ongoing monthly fees associated with the fund, so if you are going to go that route, be well capitalized to get it off the ground, so don't count on the income from the asset management fee to actually be income for awhile. 

Johnathan - thank you for the  outline and posts --Using a VA  loan is this a good move move as this will be  the only option that allows  zero down  payment --A  future future loan application for a new  primary home will likely be  affected  ...depending on  when you  buy the next property - any lender  will likely use your  schedule E  from tax returns to determine the  negative or  positive  rental income  you  will use for  qualifying purposes  ....also if you move out of one of the  4 units , you will  have  some additional income from this  unit that may be  counted - what are the  projected  rental income per unit  you are using in your estimations  ?

Note that I'm far from full-time these days as well...This assumes I don't count my BiggerPockets and blog writing time as part of my flipping business...if you count those, I'm probably closer to minimum wage...  :-)

Thus they would count against my profit and loss statement?  

Matt, as I recall, the HUD site has the legal/acceptable room occupancy on a table illustrating square footage and volume requirements (like average ceiling height of 7' for floor space to be counted).

You may be the fortunate guy who has low expenses over the long run but counting on that is going against the statistics.