Undoubtedly the wood is arriving from a super dry warehouse somewhere in SE Calgary, not exactly a climate controlled environment.

Even if qualifying as an RE pro, it's still passive income and thus not subject to SE taxes.You actively participate in a rental activity if you make management decisions.

Eventually I will identify a particular piece of property and spend the money on a more exhaustive feasibility study for that specific location, but I feel like I need to have done some research on the Tucson area or SE AZ as a whole in order to see what I'm up against.

We have an Ins Carrier that will put the tenant as insured but us as the 'mtg holder' per se so payouts go to us but NOT the claim.

In my agreements I have the right but not obligation to 7-8% of rents plus turn work, repairs, etc.It usually helps me to funnel some SE income thru.

Capital gains is not a form of income per se, but a simply defines how your portfolio income will be taxed; Portfolio income is not subject to self employment tax but may be subject to net investment income (NII) tax; It’s important to understand that the IRS views portfolio income as distinctly different from passive income, even though it is popularly considered to be “passive.”

What makes you think this type of activity would not be subject to SE tax?

On the MO side you want to focus on areas like Blue Springs, Lees Summit, SE Independence, Grain Valley and very limited parts of KC proper.  

I attended a landlord bootcamp which I HIGHLY, 100% RECOMMEND even well experienced landlords go to, not the city run one, which I also have been to and came away thinking it should be called the "tiny bit of good info and LOTS of veiled threats if you're a future slumlord class" but its from the Apartment Assoc of SE WI (I'm a member for full disclosure) but you'll get 8 or 9 hours of PRICELESS info directly from the attorney who my usual, general practice lawyer said is hands down the one to call for any bad eviction or potentially big liability type deals and he'll go through things that the city for one, would never dream of telling you, such as how in Milwaukee Cty, our judiciary is very biased to the left side of politics as you'd guess for a generally left leaning county, but that many of these judges take those political stances right into their courtrooms and you sure as hell better be prepared for rulings that fly in the face of the current laws, especially the changes made a few years back when the GOP gained TOTAL control of state gov't in legislature as well as the governor seat and as was national news at the time, went like a machete through the law books and fixed a lot of things needing fixing, including several relatively minor aspects of landlord/tenant laws that COULD be exploited, as well as stuff that didn't make sense anymore, etc.

I have it for anonymity and the SE benefits.