The tenant was paying rent to the previous owner but hasn't been paying rent for a while since the property was foreclosed and sold to the bank.

His "buyers" - who could not qualify for a loan because, presumably, they could not convince the bank they made enough to cover PITI payments - inevitably defaulted, and after a few months he would evict and start all over. 

We're still waiting for the owners bank to let us know if they'll actually help us or not.

So if I understand, you would get a loan the normal way and then the bank trust is an extra fee that comes along with owning the property in Mexico?

Yes, I have a written agreement, bank records, plus phone records & email and text threads showing he routinely failed the SLAs outlined in the contract. 

I worked in banking for years and was a Private Banker with securities licenses for a time.

Quote from @John Clark: Did you check for houses on the auction list,  or you can check with banks and look for REOs and convert that into a single family home and house hack or turn it into a Airbnb. 

Explore detailed population growth statistics at the Federal Reserve Bank of St.

I’ve bought some houses with 0% interest for a year credit cards and a few with consumer lines of credit from banks.

We've worked with local banks and been able to finance the three we own without any issues.I don't necessarily know if it's "beginner" investor friendly but you'll learn everything you need in the bootcamp which is the gold standardWe get loans with 3-7 year balloons and 25 year amortization typically