By the time it's foreclosed, you have made a nice profit, you didn't use your real identity (so good luck finding you) and you disappear.
The father of a good friend of mine used to buy tax-delinquent properties at the county tax sale, mostly slum apartment buildings. Then he’d start collecting rents while neglecting to do any maintenance or paying the taxes himself. When the building code violations stacked up and the building would be in danger of being seized by the city, he’d donate it to a church and take a big tax write-off. All perfectly legal.
It is almost as good as the scam which (makes) lets you write deals where the borrower is almost sure to default, insurance will cover damage to the property, and when you foreclose, the property value is sure to have gone up because the housing market is booming.
There are a lot of people on both sides of this scheme who made out pretty well.
Those of us who had nothing to do with it are getting screwed.