Are you able to start investing in your hometown instead?

If you plan on living there, I would pick the place you want to live, then start investing.  

Would you have or know where I could find an example lease to use as a starting point?

Hello I just started using prop stream and will let you know how it is.

That's a great approach in terms of starting with a 3-month lease. 

I'm looking to purchase my first rental property and have been searching for a deal that would generate positive cash flow based on my projections. However, finding properties that would cash flow with a 20-25% down p...

I will try and get answers for the questions, but eventually if the risk is more, probably move away from the deal.

I’m not sure you could really scale a STR on Shopify but you could always start there and migrate to another platform. 

House hacking is a great way to get started.

For the quickest answers, search on Forum topics: this has been answered many times.On interactive Forums (like here), try to be very specific, starting with a topic title, like: "Need strategy ideas for working with private lenders".