See with SEO it is all about knowing your audience and apply logic.For paid marketing, you need to know your audience AND you need to fully understand the tools of the system/platform you use for marketing.Either learn it and become the best at it, like I did SEO, or hire an expert.

I'm open to buying something more locally but the market here is easily 3-5x that of AZ in most areas, making it impossible for me to get in at this point without traditional financing.My questions are:What amount of cash flow should I consider as "safe"?

You will see the points and fees are usually higher than traditional bank loans for the type of loans we need, unfortunately part of the business. 

I'm a new member on the platform as I am to REI at a whole.

The other two are traditional IRAs I believe

The USDA backed loan is very appealing...but the kicker is that they will only finance non-income producing property from my understanding, or more traditional forms of multifamily property. 

MY understand was they do not grant you real property rights like traditional real estate assets (condos, SFH, etc).After these realizations I decided that if I wanted to own a real property, within my budget, I would need to leave NYC, and move to another state.

For example, Redfin, Opendoor, and Homie are taking on the traditional real estate sales model. 

HUD doesn't finance, and the other two are where you would get the traditional financing from now...that you stated you can't get.Seller financing is best done when the seller has 100% equity in the property.

You can get a single family house upto a fourplex using traditional financing.