Making vacancy a contingency in an offer

[Derek Daun]

I'm looking at a house that is currently rented, but so far the owners have not given notice to the occupants to vacate. I'm not sure if this is because the owners don't want to lose out on the rent checks while it is up for sale, or if it because they are out of touch with the property. There was an open house scheduled for this past weekend, but it had to be cancelled due to the house being in absolutely no state to show. The tenants have junk EVERYWHERE and chicken coops every where (Garage, basement)

The place still has a lot of potential, but I have no interest in dealing with these tenants. If I get to the point where I want to put in an offer, I'd like to make it contingent on the  property being vacant. According to their agent though, the owners need to give 60 days notice. Assuming they don't already plan on asking the tenants to leave, this would imply a sales contract greater than 60 days, as well as other issues, like trying to inspect a house filled with junk.

I'm curious if others have had success doing this. The seller is apparently some sort of investment group, with what I'm guessing has some problems due to the aborted open house.

Alternatively, I guess I could just give a really, really low offer as-is, but I'm not sure if it's worth the potential head ache. 

[Thomas S.]

Make two offers at the same time, one extremely low, as is, the other higher contingent on vacant closing.

You do not want the present tenants under any conditions as you will only end up having to evict down the road. Make that problem the present owners responsibility, unless of course they are willing to sell so low that dead bodies would be acceptable.