Pre-foreclosure marketing plan offering owners to stay in their home

[Nat C.]

Objective: Acquire properties in 'X' neighborhood for long term hold

Targeting: Pre-foreclosures

Procedure: Pre-foreclosure list acquired from realtytrac.

Write individually letters to owners and follow up with a house visit 2 days later. General sales pitch-

Dear Mrs Smith,

Would you like to avoid foreclosure and remain in your home?

I am a local investor who would like to buy your house and retain you as a tenant. 

Some of the benefits to you include-

Avoid foreclosure; don't ruin your credit score or ability to get a loan in the future

I will pay off the outstanding loan balance

I will pay you a lump sum of cash

You can choose to remain in your home and pay market rent

All house repairs and maintenance will be taken care of for you

I will come by on Wednesday evening at 7pm to discuss the details of this letter with you. 

Please feel free to reach out to me on 777-123-456.

I appreciate your time and look forward to speaking with you soon.

Many of the houses I've found have an outstanding loan balance which is more than the house is worth. In this case I would attempt a short-sale with the bank using a broker friend who specializes in foreclosures and short-sales. 

I watched a 'guru' video on YouTube which said to offer the bank a pay-off of half the mortgage amount. I certainly plan to use this as a starting point but am skeptical of the success rate.

If the owner has no equity in the property my 'cash payment' to the seller will be $1000. My monetary offer to the owner will obviously reflect equity and loan balance. 

Overall my goal is to end up paying $100/sq ft for a property. This neighborhood was selling for $50/sq ft 5 years ago and is now upwards of $200/sq ft. The benefit to this is most current owners paid very little for their properties originally. 

I was wondering if there is any way to improve my marketing plan? I am not expecting a stupendous success rate however I think offering to assist people to remain in their home will be an advantage. Yes, if they did not pay their mortgage, they may not pay rent but I will undertake eviction proceedings in that case. 

My objective is not to flip properties or suddenly have huge passive income from rental properties. My objective is to acquire properties in X neighborhood.