My process for this was to first determine that there was not a surviving spouse and then to see if the deceased had owned any property through the county's tax assessors site.To those who have done this type of marketing before, my questions is this: is it more effective to send letters to the deceased's address (addressed generically to "Owner", not a specific name) and hope it gets forwarded to the heirs or should I research who the children are and send letters to them?

This would effectively make you the property manager and give you the option to purchase the property at some point down the road.

The payment was not real large so from a worker's comp liability perspective, we are effectively self-insured for claims at this level.

In commercial deals it is common to have an attorney draw up a contract specifically for that transaction

Transactional (not transitional) funding is only when you have your buyer already set up, and his funds are with the closing agent.

This happens all the time, is not unethical or criminal, and you should not file a complaint.Here's the mentality of the other side of the transaction:1) Man, it sucks that I need to short sell my home, especially now that debt forgiveness is no longer protected in 2014 due to expired legislation.2) I had better market it properly to make sure the short sale is approved.3) I had better vet the buyer properly to make sure they close the deal.4) I would prefer a cash offer to a financed offer.5) Cash offer from someone I know is accepted.That's it.

There are pitfalls to these transactions.

I do the job for cost, and we effectively split the upside 50/50.

401ks AND IRAs can be subject to UDFI/UBIT. 401ks are EXEMPT on real estate transactions.

The reason being, as a Broker you can have agents under you, and it's necessary to have enough experience, and understanding of the process, laws, etc. to be able to oversee them and their transactions.