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. 

Regardless of the IL shenanigans, best practice is to build a relationship with someone you can trust as opposed to feeding off the bottom price.