I just get my lists fir free from the municipalities:- Most delinquent tax payers- Tax-exempt property owners- Tax-deeded previous owners still in the redemption period- Fire-damaged etc

The IRS requires that the same taxpayer who sold the relinquished property must purchase the replacement property.

If the lender for the replacement property wants to lend only to an LLC, how do we make this work with a 1031 and the "same taxpayer" rule? 

This way it is the LLC and not the foreign national who is the tax payer for the property. 

Perhaps the county/city would allow you to take over the tax payments but that is up them.

Under the IRS rules, a person  qualifies as a real estate professional if: (1) more than one-half of the personal services the taxpayer performs in trades or businesses during the tax year are in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates, AND.....(2) hours spent providing personal services in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates total more than 750 during the tax year.Like @Greg Scott and @Russell Brazil mentioned above, I don't believe that you would qualify as a REPS, but if you are going to try it, make sure you document it very well (i.e. with some kind of proof, like time cards, mileage forms, and/or receipts, etc.) so that just in case you do get audited, you at least have something to provide to the IRS agent. 

Withdraw your 401k, pay income tax, pay tax penalty, lose opportunity of compounding interest etc - you're taking a huge L out of the gate here Do you have a track record of success?

.: @James Hamling And with a singular "simple" quite "stimulus" trillion handed to JP to "provide liquidity" to "Protect" creditors/ business/ Americans/ etc etc pick your slogan, we the American tax payers just funded the single largest hostile take over in human history.But no one talks about this and a big % of the people reading this don't have a clue what you are talking about!

(Using traditional affordable housing, this project would have cost $400,000 per door, so the potential savings to the taxpayers is significant)     Robert, did you look at the proforma? 

Tax sales are a balancing act among (1) the need of government to collect property taxes and, if owners will not pay then, then to provide incentives for investors to purchase the tax rights and (2) investors, who need an attractive return for the risk they are taking, and (3) citizen taxpayers, who should not lose their property and all equity because of small debts and perhaps temporary or at least relatively short term financial difficulties.