My assumption is that if they have owned the properties for 20 years, the owners may be ready to retire and could use a large chunk of cash and to eliminate the headache of ownership.

They wanted it under our names only and they would only do it with existing customers.

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If an assumption of a vacancy rate is not met ( for instance in a year you have 100% occupancy?

Until I realized I need to utilize my creativity, ingenuity, number crunching forte, ability to sell and impeccable customer service skills.  

It is speculative in that you are not building a custom home for a specific buyer, just speculating (obviously based on market analysis) that there are buyers in the area looking for what you're going to provide.

@Ned Carey  I know that the title co is responsible for the title search and uncovering any liens but my assumption is that the title company can only uncover what is in public record.

(I don't know your market but I'm making some assumptions based on the numbers you mentioned.)

If not, you can usually get it from your title company's customer service department or your real estate agent usually has access to a tax database that reveals owner's names.If this property is the only property that person has ever owned in that county, and their name isn't John Smith, it should be easy to figure out what documents pertain to that property.

So based on the assumption these are cash flow rentals.. the reality of reselling them will largely depend on AREA of town...