You must report rental income on Schedule E and can deduct rental expenses like repairs, maintenance, property taxes, mortgage interest (allocated between personal and rental use), and depreciation for the rented portion.

If I understand correctly; the seller would receive 80% ($40,000) directly from the mortgagee at closing and would enter into a personal agreement with me for the 20% down payment ($10,000) in which he would be reimbursed separately from my mortgage payments at a separately agreed upon rate and term?

None of this has anything to do with your personal tax return.

Real estate investment is my future.This amazing voyage begins with setting personal goals and vision.

I have no idea who I should reach out to for help, and I just do not understand how this person no longer responds to emails or returns phone calls.I hope someone can provide some guidance. 

What I was getting at is that even investing "out of state", let alone out of the country, is more difficult when you don't have any personal connections and even more difficult with your first property.

The person I would seek advice from is a CPA about this. 

Imagine making millions of dollars over the course of your career and then having to pay 30-50% every year to uncle sam instead of compounding that cash over time.This is exactly what real estate professionals have learned to mitigate.To reduce their taxable income, they just buy a building every year, do a cost seg, and use depreciation to reduce their tax liability dramatically.Their personal wealth snowball grows much larger and much faster than their W2 counterparts who give most of their money back to the government each year.Following this strategy as a real estate professional is one of best ways to end up with a much larger net worth at the end of your career.

Cosmo - I personally don't know Phoenix well, but if I had to do this in another city I would look at income levels, crime levels, and population growth (if you can) by zip code and/or area within a DMA as a starting point.

Have the tenants take and send pictures of any maintenance items and video chat with the repair person as needed.If you ever get in a situation where you just feel like you can't do it or don't want to do it, you can always put a PM in place at any time.