I think most failures flow out of our own deficiencies so my advise would be to make an inventory of what it takes to be successful out of state and then compare that to what skills you have. 

There is no deficiency judgment on a reverse mortgage.Do you know the seller's actual mortgage balance?

The servicer couldn't force the seller to sign a contract, but they could certainly influence it based on deficiency amounts they'd require.

After grad school at CWRU, I went to Chicago to work in middle market real estate lending ($50MM+), and then downstream into small business lending when the CMBS market froze over, doing developer and investor lending for deals < $10MM (million).I continued to do C&I and real estate lending in San Francisco for 2.5 years, and decided the market was great to move back to Cleveland and look to invest on my own.Right now, I'm looking to network and help anyone who needs guidance on the finance side (sourcing capital and/or understanding P&L's, NOI and cap rates), as well as look to meet people to fill in MY deficiencies such as contracting and operations on the multi-family side.I'm looking forward to the next chapter in my life.

If there is an immediate excuse for any deficiency in their application, such as a brief pay history, that should prompt further investigation. 

Also, check into some type of insurance as I believe "sue your realtor/negotiator for not getting you a deficiency waiver, etc" is about to become popular.

LOL, you'd probably win the weasel award.And I keepsaying this, but it's not sinking in, a seller financed note made from equity can not seek any deficiency amount.

sub too Cons for seller:   .... buyer flakes and leaves them not on title with a loan still in their name .. buyer is ripping rents.. seller has to litigate to get title back and make payments lest their credit gets trashed... and in Texas were the bank can sue for a deficiency judgment this can be devastating to a seller..Seller trys to buy another home but cant since this mortgage is still in their name.. etc etc.Very Risky for seller.... and there are a lot of fraudsters out there that just flat lay away a uniformed seller.

Amount of deficiency grows larger and larger until tenant cannot recover and then you start to evict versus a long time ago.

If absolutely nothing has been done sine 1940 there are a lot of deficiencies that maybe present.