A couple of years ago, I worked with an investor who never updated the contact information for the loan and the Bank call the seller (ex-wife), that day she was mad at her ex-husband and told the bank her ex allowed someone to steal their property from them and they got no money, she was kicked out of her house and there were strange people living there.This could all have been avoided if the investor did this process correct.Get educated, also I do not know your attorney but not many attorneys have the knowledge to do this process correctly. 

A contractor left a back door open one day and someone walked into the house and stole $2000 worth of tools.

Here is an article with more information on what a house hack is -www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/house-hacking.

Personally, I would never live in PHX, but that is all personal biases (I prefer seasons and greenery), and clearly lots of people choose to live in PHX.At the end of the day, I would argue market selection almost only comes into play when you are talking assets that cater to institutional buyers that have to get investment committee sign off. 

If there was a house of interest listed it was get there same day and make a strong offer to even have a chance, this doesn't seem to be the case at this moment.

Even if you get something in escrow right away, it's still a 30-45 day escrow period before you would get paid, unless you are working with cash Buyers.  

Split the $20 to buy yourself lunch and dinnerIf you are on the road, daily per-diem should cover a lot of your day to date living costs.If they send you on the road, you can potentially airbnb your house.Best of luck!

I am trying to find a mentor and I feel like working for a corporate wholesaler might give me the experience I need to turn my little $175,000 chunk into a rental property business one day.

If the bank will call their note if you commit to the transfer you can also check out this article as one strategy that has been used to work around the issue.This is not legal advice, just my opinion as a real estate investor.

But a person who has $40k in "available cash on hand" needs to hold on to it for a rainy day.