Once I build a list of prospective homes, what steps should I take to identify which homeowners might be interested in selling?

Conventional financing is geared and regulated for the owner occupied homeowner and is designed to protect that borrower from poor lending practices.  

Keep in mind things take time to really launch and takeoff , but with the resources and experience that Direct2Deals has, it makes the process a whole lot easier and something less that I have to handle inside of my business & can now focus on optimizing and being more efficient in the way I conduct business and close our deals.On another note, if you are looking for qualified homeowners that are seeking to get an offer on their house or sell soon, and your goal is to have the most amount of opportunities to close for yourself and your team, we recommend doing a nationwide, multiple state targeted campaign with Direct2Deals.They have a dedicated team to handle all questions you may have on a weekday basis through their email support system that they go through Monday through Friday to help you with your success at Direct2Deals.

etc.Referrals from other local investors, and also referrals from other homeowners in my area on local facebook groups!

Across all the pieces needed to come together to pull a RE transaction off: Borrower - Lender - Insurance - Title - Sometimes Broker. 

YUP very easy work around for this but it does take a lender who will be a little less risk adverse than bigger HML that will simply say no title insurance no loan..

As for insurers not renewing insurance in certain zip codes it happens all the time. 

I'm currently paying $4100/year for insurance, and when it renews in October it will go up to $5500/year.

.($175,000 / 20% = $875,000)Of course, the buyer can put less than 20% down and pay private mortgage insurance, but let’s say they really want to put 20% down.As a seller, you have now reduced the pool of buyers who can pay $1M for your home since the buyer needs to save more money to reach a $1M purchase price.So, would you rather make $875k and “save” money on commission, or make $975k and just pay their agent?

I'll also go back and tag records as the homeowners respond to my marketing so that I can see what lists are performing and what lists aren't.It does pretty much what you're describing in your post if you choose to use it in that way.