My money is tied up and I'm not able to hold this one.

It is great to "double dip" on a transaction.However, I think you will find that you will not be able to represent the Buyer and yourself in the transaction as you are not able to provide the same level of service to each party since you have an ownership interest on the seller side. 

My plan was to organize an LLC in which people disperse their funds into a giant pool of funds as I fundraise and can make offers with this LLC.

For some reason I was not able to post in local Philadelphia forum.Let me know if you want to see any other county that covered by Trend (berks, bucks, burlington, camden, chester, cumberland, delaware, gloucester, kent, mercer, montgomery, new castle, salem, schuykill)

If I'm not able to close within my legally stated option window, I inform the homeowners as soon as I can so they'll be able to do business with someone else. 

I do not want to have a lease and then we are not able to close.Maybe make the lease contingent on the property closing?

No giant XLS needed.   

I did just that and we were not able to come to an agreement but the experience of going back and forth with my needs (as the buyer) with the needs of the seller have been a learning experience.

There was also a notable bidding war that he won: one of the "Part-timers" was bidding against the bank and was about to win the auction.

It looks like the world record GIANT cucumber (in that tiny picture).