Since I am not from this area, I will be keenly looking for any advice on which area to consider as a starting point.Thanks in advance.

It reads like you have a good income, but, it looks to me as if you maybe a bit TOO keen to find -any way you can to borrow as much as you can as soon as you can. 

I am keen to learn more about how I can get into this growing field.

My impression (not from experience, but second hand) is that if there's a mortgage is in your name, the mortgagee will not be too keen on you trying to swap it.  

What areas on you keen about?

Banks aren't very keen on assignment of their contracts, so this might not be the best place to begin. 

VRBO/AirBNB is the short term rental game and I wasn't keen on doing this because SLC to me doesn't seem to be a hot short term rental market.

I am 21 years old and have always had a keen eye for getting into real estate investing.

I'm a keen believer of being the average of the people you associate with and from a REI perspective, BOMA is great if you want to meet some folks that own everything from strip malls to down high rises!

My point is, yes, in theory the cost could be similar to a single family home, common areas maintained, but if you are not involved in how the community is run, you can learn the hard way that other people on the board may be looking out for their own interests, want to save money at the cost of how the community is maintained, or could simply not have keen business sense in order to run the community like a business.