Since we live in Oregon, we travel a lot to events in Dallas and other states. 

Do they pay the mortgage via your payments, Do you make the payments to the lender.. if the payments go to the seller how can you protect yourself in the event that the seller stops making the payments to the mortgage and you don't lose the property?

Or you can directly meet them by registering to real estate events around you: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-events-and-happenings 6.

As things are occurring now, the bank is being paid, so they have no interest in property seizure or foreclosure, as it is a performing note, so the FIL currently has the opportunity to conduct control of it in the same way a normal person would, which should allow him to pass this via normal methods (living trust for example) to heirs, provided the payments on the note have no interruption.Am I off on any of that?

Pros for Investor:You won’t have to worry about tedious management problems that often occur when owning a rental property.

Some of the challenges I’ve seen here are in the early stages of building a reputation of quality student rentals and then keeping your pipeline of upcoming students full for when turnovers occur. 

Under Section 1031, once the sale of a property occurs a qualified intermediary must receive the cash from the sale, similar to an escrow arrangement.

I have met the majority of them here through networking events and just working in the industry itself.

There is no historical precedence for modern STR’s and platforms like AirBnB during a “crisis” event.

You need to go to every event and start networking with everyone, investors, brokers, etc.