Question on buying a foreclosure with the owner still there

[Andy Sabisch]

We are looking at a REO SFR where the numbers look good for either a flip or hold investment. It is an auction property and the listing dis not say vacant or occupied. We drove by and looked at it from the outside and it looked positive . . . then we went by a day later and saw a car in the driveway and a garbage can at the curb. It looks like the owner that lost the house in late 2019 is still in the house. The lender is shown on the tax and land roll as the owner and they are the ones listing it as the auction property. A neighbor we talked to said that the owner had been in the hospital a few times followed by it looks like he bought a new car (the car in the driveway was a Cadillac).

So the question for the community is woudl you bid on the property as we had planned on and deal with eviction after the fact (the sample contract on the auction site is clear that do not state the house is vacant when you bid or when you close and you are responsible for any eviction) or simply walk away and not deal with the courts with the moratorium ending in about a month and the backlog of cases will be substantial. Any experience with buying a REO property and having to evict people that did not want to leave when they lost the property?

Thanks