I could care less about the "tax break" angle as that is your distraction. 

Being in college, you will want as little distraction as possible.

@Frank PatalanoMyself and my goals, distractions like internet, need to work on my mind

It's a financial and time cost, it's a distraction.

Absolutely not.According to Heather and Brandon Turner's book, the fact that they want to put so much money up front means they are trying to distract you from something else they don't want you to see, and hope that offering you enough money will accomplish that.

I then got distracted until I learned about the daily fines.

It is a big distraction for you.

It is easy to get distracted, but where you focus the most attention will get results. 5) It sounds like you want to live a life by design.

I have tried a couple times to get ahold of someone to do this, but I haven't been able to get much traction--I will admit, I quickly get distracted with other things and forget to follow up.Is the right way to go about this just pure persistence, or have others had success buying from large corporations like railroads?

I was distracted and talking to someone about fix and flips and letting them know that the sale is taxed as ordinary income instead of capital gains and completely messed up what I was trying to point out.I was trying to say that STRs may help to offset some ordinary income with losses if you actively participate, whereas LTR losses only offset passive income unless you are classified as a real estate professional.