Motivating owners of vacant property

[Neil Sinha]

Hello.  New investor here trying to get my game plan in order.  At the end of the street I live on are two vacant houses, one with a gaping hole in the roof.  Researching in property records, I find they (along with several other properties around town that seem vacant on Google maps) are owned by an orthodontist that lives about 10 miles away.  He acquired them in the early 80s, all the liens show released, and google searches of these two addresses show other names; indicating he likely used to rent them to tenants.  They are in disrepair and have city code liens for having to lock them up to keep out vagrants.

My question is this: I get yellow letters myself from investors seeking to acquire property in the area, so I can reasonably assume someone has tried to make offers to him before on those properties.  I want to know what motivates someone to hold vacant houses so I can see if I can use that knowledge to advantage in a negotiation.  It would be plausible if he bought them in the 80s in a different regulatory era that he was offsetting his orthodontist income with passive losses.  But then property management became too much of a hassle and he gave up.  If he hasn't sold yet even though he could, what would change his mind?

Anyone have similar experiences with real estate "hoarders" that own property with no clear goal for it?  How do you convince them it's in their interest to accept an offer?  Thanks for any suggestions.

[Account Closed]

@Neil Sinha  Hoarder and abandoned houses are my favorites! A few things about tracking those folks down:

Do you know FOR SURE he lives 10 miles away? Or are you going off the tax records? Tax records are often not up to date, so it's VERY possible that whoever is living at the mailing address listed has been getting bombarded with investor's letters and post cards, and the actual owner has no idea.

Don't depend on direct mail (i hate it), and don't assume he's gotten offers. I'm closing on an abandoned house this week that has been boarded up since 2009. My mailings to the owner were all returned, so i went full on stalker mode. Drew out his entire family tree from Intelius, and started tracking down and messaging family members one by one until i got one to give up his phone number. Got him on the phone and had a contract signed that afternoon.. he said he's never received any mail about the house. 

Stop worrying about "plausible", track him down, get him on the phone and ask him!

Good luck