Most residential agents are Realtors as well as being agents because 99% of all the other brokerages are affiliated with he Realtor organization. 

On top of that, our education system seldom offers personal finance courses to young students, which will enable people to take advice from gurus or the internet and question whether or not it makes sense for them in their particular situation.

There are a couple of ways of finding contractors in your market:  1) through an affiliate membership listing with your local realtor association, 2) through a plumber referral, 3) through the city utilities, 4) home inspectors (they see these on a regular basis).  

It's common in my area for LL to pay water/sewer in a multi-unit, and maybe offer other "freebies" like internet and cable TV. 

If my internet was restricted at a rental I would automatically ding the review one star.

I would be extremely cautious of anything that is less than a year old on the internet.

Through some internet searches it appears that the city governments of Southern Pines/Pinehurst are trying to slow the short term rental market in the area.

Here are some numbers based on the info I could find.Gross annual Income- $180,000(rents,cleaning fees,occupancy tax and fees)Costs: Cleaning fees-$22,500Occupancy tax-$6,500Property tax-$4,500utilities-$13,000Cable/internet-$5,000Insurance-$2,000Maintenance-$3,000HOA-$7,500Debt service-$48,500Total Net Income- $67,500Sorry for all of the numbers, not sure if I'm missing anything or questions I should be asking.

There is so much information out there (in the forms of books, podcasts, youtube, internet in general) so I wasn't sure if anyone could recommend somewhere online that had it all localized in one spot.

I think you'll see more macro effects of workers relocating to fast internet, cheaper COL states.