I think I failed to mention this is for a 5-unit commercial office/retail space, so not residential (which doesn't matter regarding what I was asking help with).

If you fail to deliver purchase you can lost your deposit. 

I would now prefer to fail spectacularly than not try at all.  

Every gold standard has failed and/or was eliminated.   

Your furnace also likely blinks a code to indicate what has failed.

If all else fails, try offering a bigger down payment. 

It's beyond frustrating when I have watched more than 100 actions fail and yet here I am wanting to buy the home!

In houses with exterior slope towards house, I like a passive approach; exterior French drains (I'm not a fan of sump pumps--they can fail). 

Interestingly, there have been several BPO's done, with walk through and everything, and the highest, and most recent value came in at ~580K.The failed Short Sale was actually approved by the servicer for $480K.I suspect this has to do with the Non-Performing status of the mortgage, my mother's age, and Massachusetts being a tenant/occupant friendly state.I had to terminate the arrangement of this Short Sale when I finally acquired unbiased legal/realty counsel, and realized that the sizable return (700K - 475K = 225K) would not only be an act of fraud for us to receive, but that the buyer was likely misleading us into thinking we would get this money.Since then, I really started doing my research, and am very interested in pursuing Real Estate Investing thanks to all of the hard lessons I've learned.I organized an off market pool of cash investors, and showed the house and took offers. 

But as to the lessor, he has taken back properties from his NNN tenants who failed to perform, such as non payments or bankruptcies.