My personal belief is that the rise of technology and job elimination has increased the importance of owning/controlling the means of income producing assets.  

The red tape and hoops that you have to deal with can be a nightmare and cause months of delay before you even touch a tree much less break ground.Also I agree with Devon, some architects do not live in reality (as a building contractor I live with it all to much) so it is important that you have a product to produce that you can not only sell in your market, but you can tweak and add value engineering to as you learn to construct your product, this can be equated to time or material, and is in my opinion the number one reason you would consider recreating a building multiple times and only change the façade. 

This first property needs to produce a $400-$500 in monthly return.

If it has a balloon payment, you may have to either re-finance or you may be able to request a renewal/adjustment at that time.If my assumptions are correct, you don't necessarily HAVE to pay it off completely by the end of year 10, you just have to do SOMETHING by the end of year 10.Please clarify your post a bit.As to term, I generally run at a 15 or 20 year amortization and buy at aggressive prices to help keep cash flow healthy.

An inquiry won't hurt you too bad if your overall credit is healthy.  

As an investor, assuming the numbers above hold and i rent out both units,  could I package the building as an "airbnb product" that is like a turnkey property that produces way better cashflows than an average rental and sell it for more money than i would get marketing it on the MLS.I know that anything less than 4 units is not considered commercial, so cashflow methods of valuation using cap rates dont apply.

I believe a healthy dose of motivation is an important part of anyone's diet so If anyone has any success stories, specific real estate related memories or moments that stand out, or any general words of encouragement to help get me fired up please share! 

I believe that I can take everything I have been building towards and the support of BP and achieve my dreams of establishing a healthy passive income in real estate by the age of 25, so I never have to work again - I can chose to work and enjoy my life and its offerings.  

I definitely wouldn't mind owning a storage facility someday, I think those types of investments produce a large cash flow.

Agree with the above posters that the big cities will see little affect and that the heavy oil producing areas probably will be affected.