If someone wants to wait because they’re concerned, they can pay for the extra day.  

Consider buying a 3-4 bed house and renting out the other extra rooms, or a live in flip could be a great start as well.

Throw all extra money from the fourplex into the mortgage so I can use a HELOC sooner. 3.

Someone in your local market should be able to give you a better estimate of the value you’d get if you sold it with an extra bedroom vs open concept so you should reach out to some agents.

I think so, because none of these numbers take into account my W-2 salary, currently able to save about 50%, so that could be diverted to covering the RE debt.I’m just looking for options - in theory with the partners we have we could do a deal now, but if I took out the extra loan it would give us more reserves.

I'm not saying it's 100% not advisable, but there is already so much to go through just investing locally, and going out of state adds a lot of extra research/stressors/unknowns on top of that.

With townhouses or condos, you have extra fees from the HOA/condo association and the potential for them to restrict rentals. 

When income starts coming in from a rental and you have extra funds or you can mention how your net worth has gone up, etc....some interest may appear. 

Bonus for that is that any time they see a bug, company will come out and treat again, no matter when, and we never have to get a call as tenant can call them  directly, no extra charge to us. 

Having a lower monthly payment also give you the ability to pay back extra should you feel like it.