They should ONLY include properties of the same size (sq ftg), and within a short distance form this property.Lastly, your profit comes after you recover your cash you put in. 

The distance and detachment is too much to make it worth it at this point in your journey, not knowing much about what you want to do.

You'll need to look outside of those markets and be open to long distance investing. 

I recommend you read "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing" by David Greene.

I think they contain solid information and will help lay a good foundation as a beginner (Haha, I'm completely new to real estate as well, btw)I'm also going to be reading the following books, and hopefully I can finish all by the end of this month:1) The ABCs of Property Management2) The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing3) Long-Distance Real Estate Investing How to Buy, Rehab, and Manage Out-of-State Rental Properties (this might be the most important one to me personally)4) The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money DownIn addition to reading, I'm consuming crazy amounts of youtube videos, and I'recommend you do this as well.

With regard to the proximity to the beach, I tend to have a beach distance of 15 min or 5 mile rule, whichever is less. 

We like the short-term rental idea because we could stay at the property ourselves when we want - summer break, spring/winter breaks, etc.Our budget will be right around $1M or less ideally, and we would like a short distance to the ocean.How likely is it that we could find a property as described above and have it cover or come close to covering the mortgage? 

This is a beautiful house - rehabbed/looking new and fresh - walking distance to the water etc, yet low gross yield  compared to Byrd (???)

In terms of distance I will be about half hour away so not bad at all.

I have seen two cases where it went the distance and the buyers successfully sued for specific performance.