Using Liens to find a Deal?

[Noah Kanter]

I'm an aspiring first time homebuyer who's also diving deep into the BP universe to educate myself into a better position in this crazy competitive market. I do well for myself, but I'm still having an incredibly hard time competing and I'm looking for unorthodox ways to find off-market deals with potentially motivated sellers. 

I've been learning about buying liens at auctions, etc., but what I'm wondering about is approaching owners with hefty liens and seeing if they want to make a deal to get themselves out of the situation. By using PropStream I actually located a decent looking duplex in my price range with a $32k lien that looks like it was from a private lawsuit. I'm curious if anyone has had success by offering to pay off the lien in exchange for an off-market sale at a specific price? 

Any feedback or creative thinking on the lien leverage/off-market deal front would be appreciated!

Noah