Hello All,This may be an academic exercise, but I want to learn how to approach contacting heirs of deceased owners of distressed and pre-foreclosure properties.  

@Mark Gallagher  you are academically correct and realistically wrong. 

I'm glad that I wasn't put on academic probation.

My academic and career history has helped me develop a solid writing skillset and experience with statistics as well as some marketing.

If you're truly a school oriented entity, you can based on academics, but not from a lack of experience.

@Matt R.Our own furnished rentals are aimed at students and academics (post docs) and are generally for a term (4-months) or longer, however another landlord here in town provides "Executive rentals" - furnished along with dishes, towels, sheets, etc and he takes a full months rent (the maximum under law here) as a security deposit.  

Until you generate leads and talk to sellers, this is all just an academic exercise. 

@Chaim F.For purely academic purposes, what do you mean by more specific?

I work as a Corporate RE consultant out of NYC, and while I have plenty of academic RE knowledge, I am excited about putting it to work and learning plenty of real world lessons along the way!

Yes Tom,  I am,  the question is academic - I wanted feed back,  I recently  discussed  this topic with a few friends and I was surprise to learn some would simple take a wait see approach.