I don't think your goal is achievable in Bentonville unless you start marketing or cold calling heavily.

As you can tell by my post, I believe that the conventional and popular advice as to how to begin a real estate investing career is heavily flawed.  

With absolutely no prior real estate experience, they might have been able to accomplish all this in three or four years without Lifestyles, but I think the odds would have been heavily against it.It's okay to be skeptical. 

I've been heavily searching for a home in a good area that will at least break even,  but I can't seem to find anything. 

It is a tough area now that Bend has banned STRs.Not banned, but heavily regulated, indeed.

I don't know about Maricopa county or your city, but we've seen a lot of jurisdictions severely restricting STRs or eliminating them all together so if you think you're going to pursue STR and you're not in a key vacation market that relies heavily on vacation rentals, then you want to make sure the numbers work for other strategies.

Unless you want to be heavily fined, comply.

Doesn't make sense since its just a small percentage that you can take out unless you are trying a massive sales commission, but its still taxed heavily.  

Finding the right professional for this task has proven challenging due to the prevalent compensation structure in the industry, which heavily emphasizes investment management.

Not to say I don't consider all advice, everyone had to start somewhere, but the advice from someone that is " where I want to get to" is the advice I'll lean on heavily.