Not only that, but my surveyor said it appeared that the house was encroaching on the neighboring property by a couple inches! 

If your offer has a bunch of zeroes in it, it will be shot down like the balloon it appears to be.

This appears to be a classic case of an agent not educating a buyer on what a short sale entails.

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Providing something like this appears to tell a story of a dwindling area but when you are so vague like this it's easy to use the numbers to skew the story to whatever you want to say. 

One of my properties was in the path of Hurricane Florence and while it thankfully didn’t appear to sustain major damage, there’s resulting water stain on the ceiling in the bottom floor.

But otherwise it appears in great shape, 5 bed, 2 bath, 1680sqft, 2 floor with cellar.

I'd be careful with Holton-Wise - they appear to charge a hefty fee for turnover that will destroy your return.