Clay,
I know a lot of owners don't like this but if I find myself in a situation like yours, I meet the tenant's before considering purchase, caveat being value of property. During meeting in casual conversation if you like tenant, ask a few questions like:
How do you like it.
Do you plan on living here longer than lease.
If not what can I do to keep you.
Just general questions like that will better help you understand what situation your tenant is in.
To get back to my earlier point, I met with current tenant asked a few general conversation question and discovered the person living there had signed a lease from a different state and was not familiar with the neighborhood she was moving into. To make a long story short, by doing the due diligence I found out that even though for the next 7 months I would have made roughly 70% ROI on initial investment. The property was in a very undesirable area and finding another quality tenant to rent the property would be tough so passed.
Hope this helps
Zech
