Then the thought crossed my mind..."

Anther benefit to having a continual base of tenants now is that you can count the rental income for the purpose of future lending once you have 2 years of rental income.  

It looks like you are only counting your initial 20% in your posting. 

Should I ask him if he'll look at leases to count in my favor or are pretty much all small banks going to be the same? 

I'm up in Ft Collins but still going to count us as neighbors!

The equity and appreciation you'd be counting on is basically just speculation.

I don't like crossing those over because of the risk of due on sale but others swear by it.

So do my wife and I count as two individual people?

(fingers crossed) I'm running numbers and going through spreadsheets and asking friends all sorts of questions.

Never ever count on appreciation to make a return.You'll probably end up doing at least some management on yourself.Turnkey isn't as straightforward as putting your money down and getting a cash flowing asset.