Lot's of people use the term UpState, and since I've got my BP alerts set up... it isn't solely used by New York Upstaters... apparently lots of different states like to throw around 'upstate'  Anyway, I digress.  

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

Wholesales are way overpriced, almost nothing comes across the MLS, there’s not many auctions for homes (mostly land), REOs go straight to market at market value (mostly dubbed investor specials) and we’re not sure the best way to go about finding distressed properties aside from alerts I get for lis pendens (which as I understand it, is not the point at which we want to get involved).

Spoiler alert - purchasing interest rate caps are just another way of paying interest on your loans.

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

Be aware, the change in the policy will go to your mortgagee so if you were not going to inform them, the policy endorsement may alert 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!