Bigger pockets and LinkedIn are great resources to find them.

You can linked in / facebook stalk him to try to send an email, or send a letter to his mailing address requesting a call to discuss a longer-term lease or purchase.

www.sellerfinanceconsultants.com is recommended above, but all the links on their website are broken, and their two other websites listed on LinkedIn are defunct.  

LinkedIn recruiter is an amazing tool for finding talent.

If there is still a while for the sale date, or one hasn't been set yet, your best bet would be to track down the owner (phone, email, facebook, linkedin, skip tracing) and explain the short sale benefits.

If I could afford it I would fly over and have coffee with John myself, also find out a little more about john on linkedin

(Bought the house and made a 20k flip profit)Public records are amazing: if you locate the area where the seller lives, make sure you look them up in their counties property appraiser, and clerk of court/register of deeds.Examples of places you can find them:If they pulled a permit on a house the notice of commencement may include their phone number.If they were in a lawsuit and represented themselves, most forms will include a phone number.If they were a landlord and did an eviction, the 3 day notice or complaint will usually have their phone number.There are quite a few areas the info will show up in public records.Social media is the hands down best way to locate people.I have found more people through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn then I can tell you.My favorite example is where I located the owner of an abandoned home on Facebook.

My major source of buyers so far in my RE investing has been linkedin and Craig's List.

I did some homework on the lender and they have a LinkedIn profile, website, etc but no reviews.   

@Ben Smith,In that case, I can lay out how I see many people operate this kind of a partnership in a way that both protects them, meets their goals and allows them to control how the investment is operated.Many investors lean toward using an LLC, such as those linked in the article above, in regards to investing with partners.