With housing in short supply, there are apparently plenty of people willing to wire thousands of dollars to someone they have never met, without any evidence that the person they are wiring the money to has access to or any association with the property.These types of scams are very common in the area, and I am wondering what "best practices" people use to avoid having their properties used by a third party to scam a prospective tenant.I am planning to add a watermark to my listing photos with an email address.

Home Depot skus seem like a neat feature that's fun to talk about, but is it actually useful in practice? 

You can read "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing" by David Greene to get an understanding of how this works and practical steps to take.You need a good partnership agreement.

One of my favorite quotes from Jim is “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day”.  

For instance, you can get your license in Massachusetts but you aren't able to practice until you affiliate with a brokerage.

Find Brandon's videos on YouTube for the "four square" method of analyzing homes and practice.

I want to purchase a property within 6-8 months of finishing my loan payments and ideally I would use this year to continue learning and crunching numbers on properties that I find for practice, but have no idea what my budget should be because I have no idea what loan amount I might get approved for...I would like to do FHA for the 3.5% down and looking at qualifications I should be able to qualify, but I feel like until I actually sit down and see what exactly I can get approved for, there is a huge gap in my planning...

@Marko Kustudia To be compliant with NV laws, you are supposed to have a contact person within same county or 60 miles:  NRS 118A.260  Disclosure of names and addresses of managers and owners; emergency telephone number; service of process.Regardless of that, having a property manager for long-distance ownership is really a business best practice anyway.

In general, rental real estate is considered passive.There are some exceptions.You normally hire a professional because he/she is knowledgeable in the field that they practice in.

I'm unfamiliar with their practice.