It’s ideal to have them view the property after the inspection, so they can consider any issues discovered during the inspection in their bid.

My job is to submit bid and negotiate only.  

We found two contractors and the bid we received to finish the work were higher than the bid we contracted to complete the entire rehab! 

If they "sold" the house to HUD, it likely went through foreclosure, nobody bid on it, and it became an REO.

Then you need to bid fair market value, not appropriate the bid to take into account the STR revenue but more so LTR.

You could go to work for a remodeler too perhaps giving bids, selling service or see if they will train you to be on a crew.You could also go to work as an ISA for one of the big wholesalers. 

Finally found this one and took advantage of the low interest rates by winning the bidding war with an offer slightly above asking price.

So, if you put in 20K, you could set the bid up to the amount of the 100K total debt(80K existing + 20K additional) to ensure that the property reverts to you as the lender.

Every market is different, but paying cash doesnt necessitate a huge reduction in price - it might, or it might just make the offer more competitive than other bids that require financing. 

when you say "being sold" do you mean the minimum bid amount or the actual sales amount?