I know 1031 exchanges must be same taxpayer to same taxpayer, and it seems like so far the only viable option I have found is via a Tenant in Common structure.  

She is now, after the last deal she had going fell through, wanting to sell the property to me via owner will carry/lease with option to buy OR assumption of the loan.

Thanks @Victoria Ghafoor, I did respond to you via email last evening, Sunday 8/29.

Sometimes there are errors in public records (example: inaccuracy on a deed, unknown liens, forged documents, boundary issues etc).

The memorandum (some use a letter of intent) approach is considered a "soft lease option" because the memorandum is generally a non-exclusive agreement that gives the seller the ability to walk away at any time if they choose to do so (even once you've spent all your time and energy finding a buyer and the seller decides to walk away at the last minute), but also gives you the ability to gain an assignable interest via the memorandum in a way that feels less scary to a seller (and generally you can structure the terms of the memorandum to have the rental payments begin the moment you assign, so you don't have to make payments while you're trying to find someone to assign to).You can also gain an assignable interest through a "hard lease option" that is exclusive between you and the seller, and will usually require you to start making payments at a specified date.

You could start by looking at nearby comparable properties to see if they allocate any of these costs to the tenant via RUBS or something else. 

Hello, my name is Tim Koger and I just recently found BP via Twitter.

Since not all properties will start/finish at the same time, and some will cross years (and need to be moved to WIP over the boundary), you need to itemize the purchases by property.Some of the charges might be COGS and some might be expenses. 

In the LOI or via email/phone call, give the seller an easy reason to respond: “This LOI was put together based on assumptions using our market experience and research data.

We had all the RIGHT puzzle pieces sitting in our laps (great realtor, carpenters, and mortgage broker as close friends and family) so we just had to simply put them together (with a lot of hard work and having a family of 4 living in one room at a time for a couple years.)We are now moving to Roslyn, WA and hope to start a similar (although not as extensive) project there and also try to acquire some SFHs in Kittitas County to start our REI education/climb to billions. :) This feels like bragging, but it was a lot of market luck, hard work, amazing friends, and a wife with an eye for staging.