I was still shackled to a nonsensical and ephemeral job market with "entry level" positions requiring 5 years of experience and companies that fell apart either by internal politics or by the turn of the economy. 

She's also refusing me entry to do agreed upon pest control and repairs.I feel that she has needlessly escalated this.

The barrier for entry has been slowly creeping upwards this year and delayed financing is your best bet to get into the game.

I'm transitioning from ESL teaching to property management, so looking for entry-level assistant property management jobs after finishing up Assisted Housing Manager class (Section 8).

If you're not sure on your budget, the place to get started would be talking to a mortgage broker to see what the max loan amount you would qualify for is (sorry if this is too obvious and elementary, and you may be paying cash because money is no object for all I know, but my assumption would be that you'll take advantage of the low money down financing available for owner-occupied which is a big advantage of house hacking, and that your price point is entry-level so I'll base my advice on that). 

How about barrier to entry for that type of business?

Phoenix makes the most sense to me right now because I have some family there, it's close,  and the cost of entry is so much less, but it does look like deals are hard to find.

low cost of entry and the brrrr is alive and well..   

I am interested in property management or appraising, but it seems like many of these entry level jobs pay 50% or less of what I could be making as an engineer.

If you have a lot of afci breakers (ie bedrooms), or the access to the entry area is a far distance or more obstructed, it would be more.