I am curious why you already know you will be here in the future? 

And I would really appreciate any future leads! 

*search this site using key word "house hack"5-why wouldn't you pull the equity from your house ( or leverage your house) and just by a rental property(paid off in 15 yrs by tenants, building equity for further acquisitions, future appreciation AND sale ) where the numbers will give you a specific profit, and you can retain your anonymity and personal space as a LL?

So assuming I will be buying more properties in the future, I will eventually be hiring a property management company anyways.

I do want to have rental properties in the future, so I thought maybe buying a home to live in for a couple years and then renting it when we leave would be a nice way to start that process, but just not sure if it's wise to do it now. 

Consider others strategies as well that might make sense for your current situation and future plans.

We will look for other ways to diversify our portfolio where we don’t have to be so hands-on in the future....maybe buy into a syndication??

No amount of cleaning that I was going to do, was good enough imo for a future tenant. 

Would this be a negative or positive for future property appreciation? 

Also, you will be getting landlord experience which will help you qualify for lending in the future.