All my peers and clients who previously bought tax sale properties moved away from the strategy a number of years ago so I don't have any recent experiences to go off of,  but wouldn't be surprised if the lead time is longer this time of year due to the holidays. 

This will cost time and money and can be just as difficult as moving away from home.If you want to make it you'll need to do some hard things and make some hard decisions.

The successful brokers in this space often have analysists who are researching the market for listings, prospective clients etc.

Nothing is that difficult but there are a few things to know.  

What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us.

I've taken on three clients with this issue this past year and all three tenants took the money and left within the month.

They already have my records from the previous year(s), I’ve been a client for 20+ years, and I provide pretty detailed reports per property.

I had a 1031 client who sold an apartment complex in Iowa and purchased five houses with me in Austin to use as short term and long term rentals.

There are only a handful of these and they are much more difficult to find.

And I can recall only once that a title company released earnest money to the Buyer without requiring the mutual release - worked out in my Buyer client's favor so I didn't complain.