Your offer price need not bee that value precisely, but should not exceed that value.

I would encourage precise written scope and timing definition be built into a contact signed before work proceeds.  

The more one can "see", the more precise the inputs become, the more inputs it takes...So - the reason there will never be one size fits all is not because all property is different - it's because all investors are different.

sure they could have found it on the MLS for cheaper but that's precisely the issue THEY didn't find it.

To me the terms of the debt are every bit as important...if not more...than calibrating the NOI precisely.

This error can occur if you are unlucky enough to access something we are changing at that precise moment.

I can see how an out of state investor could get in trouble by not having boots on the ground.This is precisely why we love working with investors as they search for property.  

You still have to pay the agent (or more precisely, you give the seller enough money to pay their agent).

@Gautam Venkatesan that is precisely the advice I'm looking for.

A public auction will be held precisely to determine the property FMV so that lenders and banks could not take always hundreds of acres of farmland because the farmer defaulted on his tractor loan.