Savvy visitors to Mexico avoid certain areas and taking part in certain activities, like they would actually do anywhere."

Active real estate investors who can't get comfortable not being in the driver's seat, people who just don't like real estate as an investment, those who can't get comfortable with the risks, those who just don't understand syndicate investments, those who have heard bad things about this type of investing from others, and people who have invested in syndicates and experienced bad results.

I know this may not seem possible, and probably not the answer you were looking for, but it would be worth partnering with another active investor, bringing in a passive investor(s), or even waiting until you have enough capital to deploy into the right deal. 

Occupancy can be off the charts in places like this because there is so much activity or reasons for people to visit during what would be slow days of the week and off season months. 

Regarding your second question, are you asking if those activities help meet the IRS material participation tests or qualify you as a real estate professional?

Red Stick has an active FB group

Most banks allow you to export the full year of activity to excel.If you are not comfortable using excel - you should reach out to your accountant if he/she has a bookkeeper on staff and how much it would cost them to do your books.It may be cheaper overall for your accountant to do it if you just need the books to be done once a year instead of on a monthly basis.Furthermore, this saves you from having to pay for the software.

This property I previously modeled is now active for $1.789M, if you check the model I was at $1.75M.

Here in TN brokerages regularly hold EM deposits; I have a dedicated account for such deposits myself, by law, even though I don't actively broker RE but just maintain my brokerage for the PM side of things.

I do know, however, that they are pretty strict about the STR activity in the area.