One of the benefits of the Albany area is renters may stay for long periods (this tenant had been living there for 13 years).

The more you put down the cheaper the loan which clearly benefits you at the end of the month!

That could work, but it's not common, advisable, or best.I highly recommend you start digging into a book or two about commercial investments because they can absolutely be different, and to your benefit.

We will likely get an LLC for our wholesaling business, and I'm not certain if there is benefit in my non-realtor wife to have only her name on the LLC.

@Michael Miller, I think that protecting your assets in a LLC also has tax benefits to you as well that you may not receive otherwise. 

You could try and charge a % of profits, but how easy would it be for them to operate either under the table or at a "loss" to avoid that.So if it were me, i'd look at doing a lesser amount to start and phrase it as a benefit to them to help them get their business off the ground with an excerpt to reevaluate after a year.

The benefit of having a software is that you can always go back at your historical data in case you wanted to do some analysis on your business. 

We are now expecting our second boy in April and while we have adjusted our lifestyle in many ways to make it work financially we could definitely ramp up investing if we lived somewhere with a lower cost of living.Luckily my wife is the most supportive person ever and trusts me to make the best decision for our family.

Its added benefit is the record keeping portion is always at my fingertips. 

You get to take full advantage of the tax benefits and it is fairly passive.