An update:
I emailed some of the larger real estate agencies, no reply. I'm moving on to contacting individual offices and agents next.

RE banking I've been in touch with HSBC before, and from what I can tell their US banks have very little to do with their overseas branches. Probably the only 'global' account I found was between Bank of America and Bangkok bank here in Thailand.

I've heard from a friend that you can open a bank account without an SSN and then supply it later, provided you can reasonably prove who you are and that you have money to deposit. Looks like I'll go down this route until the SSA bureaucracy catches up

-Aaron