Contacting owner of vacant property

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I stumbled across a vacant property and had a couple questions. I did some digging and found that the lender had sent a notice of pendency for foreclosure in 2011, but it looks like nothing ever came of it and the owner still owns the property. I double checked the lenders website for REOs and the property didn't come up. I also checked the county tax records and it looks like taxes are up to date with no liens.

I have the name of the owner but before I made a phone call I just wanted to run it by the forums. Is there a particular approach to contacting absentee owners that works best? I obviously need to know if he's interested in selling (I'm assuming he would be?) and what price he'd be willing to sell at. I'm not prepared to offer cash so I'm also not sure of the best way to approach giving an offer. I don't want to scare him off by sounding like I don't know what I'm doing so I guess whatever advice you can provide would be great.