Homes on my street are slowly being purchased, knocked down, and built back up due to proximity to the beach. 

Give me the address and I can see the roof in real time, and for $20 can hire someone to knock on the door with their cell on video. 

If you're bold, you can also do some door knocking.

I had a friend that was at the point of tiling his new shower and putting up kitchen backsplash when the inspector knocked on the door to snoop around.  

While that does not directly impact mortgage rates, it does have a knock-on effect that influences them.

I have some potential properties that I was interested in pursuing and was considering door-knocking to see if I can come up with a feasible win-win arrangement to purchase the house rather than have them go into foreclosure. 

Is there anything I can do to ideally get them to not list the house and sell to me, I’m assuming there might not be many options, especially since the sister and I had agreed on a price that was below market value given I was planning to invest money to remodel the home and was planning to honor his wishes of not having the home knocked down to make a townhome or new home.

Is there anything I can do to ideally get them to not list the house and sell to me, I’m assuming there might not be many options, especially since the sister and I had agreed on a price that was below market value given I was planning to invest money to remodel the home and was planning to honor his wishes of not having the home knocked down to make a townhome or new home.

If you can envision yourself knocking on a random door on the street and talking to whoever opens it, that's a good start.  

You can knock 2 birds out with 1 stone.  2) A lot of people do not know this, but you get better rates at better LTVs.