What advice would you give to someone just starting out, specifically within Maricopa County?

This last questions sounds area specific.

Either way, the answer is that it is only beneficial under very specific circumstances. 

any specific areas you would consider going high tier?

My intentions are to help others learn research steps, not to single out a specific owner or property. 

I had my eye on this specific neighborhood for about 6 months before I found this property.

However, I see from your post there are solutions for protecting my interests I hadn't considered... specifically, recording the new agreement and making payments to an escrow agent.

You dont NEED an LLC perse, if you are using a full business purpose lender that will not close in the personal name, then that specific lender will have whats called an overlay and closing in the LLC / business name is one of those requirements.

I attempted to update my original post with more specifics, but the updates never showed up, so I created a new post here:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/1167489-seek...Thanks,Sean

It seems like you are speaking about a specific market, so are there any companies currently for sale?