My wife will be the main live-in caretaker for the consumers (clients) till we have a stable income and then we will hire our a live-in caretaker for the property.

Since you can't count the income toward a loan, I think their value will be on par with normal sq footage. 3.

Generally speaking an investor collects rental income and signs a lease with a tenant whereas a flipper or developer shows "inventory held for sale" on their books and gets all of their economics derived from a SALE.

But realize that expenses also rise... property taxes, property insurance, etc will offset higher rents.The shortest answer I can give you (in my opinion) is that it isn't a great time to be jumping in for most newbie investors.  

They are often at the limit of housing cost to income ratio.Once I started being firm and clear with folks - telling them upfront that eviction proceedings would begin after 5 days past due, I virtually never have late rent.

Sellers and brokers like to pitch value on income and cap rate to make the deal look good.

I am looking at 2- and 3-family properties in towns closeby, where the taxes and rents are different, and do not want to ask the lender to run the numbers for every option.If anyone can help me figure this out, I would greatly appreciate it.

If you're just starting out and have limited funds house hacking is a great place to start.Simultaneously, work your tail off to get your W2 income up. 

For example, certain liens will not go away such as property tax liens, code enforcement liens, certain city liens, etc.  

Paying rent will force you to maintain a personal budget, it will ensure your property produces the income necessary to operate the property, it creates a savings for you as a landlord so you can prepare for the next investment, and it shows how the property performs as an investment in case you have to sell.You need two accounts: checking and savings.