The numbers get tight as soon as you get some vacancy over the years.Your idea is to grow your portfolio taking cash out of your 2 properties so that you can buy two more to balance and have  better cash flow.This is how I would look at it:- Properties are constantly in red, if a few vacancies are causing you to get in red you are not building your reserve fund.- To expand your portfolio you have to think on doing self-property management, or refinancing to get more properties won't resolve the issue and add more problems.

Properly assigning transactions to chart of accounts.

Combine that with your rental income and you have an additional $30,000 to invest each year.Borrowing against your equity is a bad idea. 10% interest?

Quote from @Shivani Kumar: I am trying to learn how to properly estimate rehab costs and negotiate with contractors.

As far as pricing out a build I would put a call out to a home builder in your area and chat with them about average cost per sq ft to build in your area to give yourself an idea.

Also it would be a great idea to hire a management company  please feel free to direct message me if you have any questions about cash flow

For tax purposes, does anybody have an idea of what this would look like as I would be living in one unit, renting one-unit long term, and then short-term renting one unit to maximize cash flow and write offs against my W2. 

I am new to this arena, my husband and I are buying our first home with the idea to house hack.

If you do not know the laws, how to properly screen a tenant, best practices for accounting, managing vendors and late night maintenance calls, you can be doomed from the start.  

I like your turnkey property idea, that's what we've been discussing.