As a newbie, I’d love to connect with local investors and agents to learn more about the area and refine my plan.

Folks say use a local lender.

Research local rental demand, especially from military and university tenants, and consider balancing your portfolio with single-family and multi-family homes.

My sister lives in Lee’s Summit, so I’ll have family nearby to help navigate the local scene.

I’m open to brokerage inquiries and excited to contribute my skills to the local market.What I'm Looking For:I'm actively seeking "live and flip" opportunities to kickstart my real estate portfolio in Arizona.

Go to local meetups, search these forums for people that have mentioned that they do private lending and attend other RE events.

Beyond trying to connect on this forum would recommend look in the BP Meet up section and checking out local DFW FB RE investor Facebook groups as well as Meetup.com and Eventbrite for local events. 

Start small with duplexes or triplexes, analyze deals carefully, and build a team of local experts.

Could you please recommend any local real estate agents?

Once you have ran through about 3 months or so of this and penciled out 50-100 deals for fun, I would talk to a local agent and start the process of looking.