Or is it a MLM approach, providing a main source of income for the gurus/coaches to go fund their own deals?   

As long as you promote your properties for rent on the main channels, such as Zillow(One of the best, as it crawls quite a few sources), AZ Republic/AZ Central (Heavily read by many PHX residents), East Valley Tribune, Craigslist (inferior, due to scamming and lack of reach, but still works and free), etc, you will generate a lot of interest.

I've looked at rentometer, craigslist, hotpad, zumper, and other sources out there.

Is real estate your favorite type of investing?

Excel isn't that hard, and it will/should become your favorite tool from this point forward.

I use propstream for one source of leads and to do smaller post card mailings.  

Sherwin Williams 1464 is my personal favorite.

You should also ask where they source their data from.

If you have enough equity another favorite option is to buy one with cash and one with maximum leverage so you have the best of both worlds. 

I wrote a detailed post on Reddit about how I passed the CA brokers exam without paying for any course (only used free study sources in other words).