@Brian S.I would suspect your state Landlord/Tenant legislation/regulations would define how notices are to be served.

Each lender has then own internal overlay.

If there's anyone in Newark, NJ looking for an intern to do some real estate related work, I'm your guy! 

Whether they care what your income is will vary based on their internal risk tolerances.

You could have applied for a withholding certificate from the Internal Revenue Service prior to the sale.  

I have no relevant experience (only somewhat valuable skill is fluent in Mandarin) so I'm thinking I'd either have to intern, entry sales (at which I'll probably suck), get an MBA, or a realtor's license.

They don’t put you through the ringer like the big banks (Goldman, Merrill,etc) with an exhausting intern or two year analyst program.

The other thing is you want to be sure you are structured properly as far as entity and bank accounts ahead of time to ensure you don't lose anything unnecessarily on taxes or anything (I used to work with international buyers buying turnkeys, so worked through those processes quite a bit).

How about the title mills - are those some kind of internal, online database that a title company has access to? 

My short term goals include constantly gaining as much knowledge as possible about real estate investment, and working/interning for a local real estate company in the high country to gain hands-on and networking experience.