With an auction it will be advertised(pretty much) that its vacant and the copper pipes are free for the taking.They don't want to heat it for the winter, prepare it for sale, deal with inspection.

From my own experiences, the people moving in Jan HAVE to move; there are good reasons for having to move (need more space because expecting a child, or job relocation, or current home has some issue that requires serious repairs - think mold or fire) and not so good reasons for having to move (foreclosure, eviction, non-payment of utilities leading to no heat, loss of job).

In a place where temps are truly temperate like coastal CA (no AC, and no central heat in this particular house) a lot of the newer windows are overkill.

There are a lot of things that I don't like in a house - like built before 1940, flat roofs, heat that is other than gas forced air, additions that aren't done right (most additions are a mess).

Even if you price the rent like a much smaller house, the tenants will still worry about heating more house than they are needing.

You can go to a suburb of Portland (Beaverton) and get a great condo (where I live) 1500sf 4br 2 bath dbl gar heat pump, nice setting with trees and trails for 12-1300 per mo.

Central heat and air, brand new AC units.Everything is brand new except the roof.

Also the pool is in a good shape and had a nice heated pool pump.They had originally listed the property for $255k and eventually reduced to $230K, this is when it went under contract for $198K which is around 16% discount.

If the landlord is paying any of the utilities then, imo, you really want to analyze your numbers and net operating income as heating bills in IL might be a whopper.And why so long to close?

Since we currently subsidize the cost of fossil fuels and other energy in the US it's going to be necessary to reduce how much we pay to heat and cool them.