I get that.however talking to a past owner can have benefits. you can learn of defects that you can address in the property.. or in my extreme example of just talking to the lady I turned the tables and made 750k in net profit on one 125k foreclosure.. that certainly would never have happened if I had not taken the time to talk to her and try to help her out of a very miserable situation for her.. keep in mind that was then .. and a lot of people losing homes in those days were older had no jobs.. all they had was equity in the home and the kids would talk them into borrowing against it and then go blow the money.. kind of like elder abuse.. 

A lease might encourage a tenant to stay for the duration of the lease, but if the tenant wants to move and is only staying to ride out the lease, they may be miserable and more likely to make you miserable too.

I call it 2br, I don't want a huge family that makes life miserable for the other tenants.

Working at a job you don't enjoy can be miserable.

Wore my worst clothes , had bleach water and soap and had a miserable day .  

The guy would not accept cash to leave, he would not accept help finding another place, he just wanted to be a royal loser and make everyone miserable, in the end it took 2 different court orders, 2 different sherriffs, 2 different times to physically remove him from the property, the first time he was removed, he filed an appeal with the supreme court claiming he was a military veteran and in hardship, all false. in the end, i lost about $6,000, by having to extend the close date multiple times, and having to keep extending my rate lock, as well as losing the money from the potential rents I was expecting and having to pay bills in a property I was no longer supposed to be in as well. the sellers constantly tried to get me to close, but the sale was contigent on that apartment being vacant so my daughter and I could live in it. they offered escrow to cover the rent he wasnt paying until he moves out, but I needed to move in and it took 3 more months to get him out after they offered the escrow. either way It wouldn't have worked.

Office life was miserable and killing me, and I had to make a change. 

I thought that I would finish my business degree and start a career in finance once I got out but quickly realized that most of the people in that industry are miserable.

Or, if you hated sales like I did after flunking miserably at that pursuit when I got out of college many years ago, carry on. 

By the early 2000s, those low income apartments were getting low-grade rehabs and sold at stupid premiums as condos, just in time for a bunch of people to buy them for $200-300k only to see prices fall to below $100k, foreclosures skyrocket, and HOAs fail miserably.