I reached out to another agent on here and got a lets schedule time, which is fine but I may lose the deal. 

The vent can look all shiny and clean from the outside and be clogged at some dip or turn out of sight.

I have seen MANY times agents and sellers passed on the first offer because now they thought they could do better and they end up losing 10-20k for being greedy.

Hello,I'm unsure how to finance my new cabin construction loan.  I have two choices, a conventional 2nd home construction to perm loan through Fannie Freddie.  The max loan amount is $625,000 (I will need to bring $88...

I broke even on the flip, but because I had to take out a loan against my 401K, I wasn't able to pay it back in time and ended up losing all of my 401K savings and paying taxes and penalties.

The key is to approach it as a conversation given you don't want to lose them.

On the other hand you may lose on a good rental property that is already or has the potential to cash flow regardless of price.

On a larger scale, how do you protect yourself from losing any money when submitting offers on deals that you need to back out of (any and all contingencies). 

I've tried various things: shorter inspection time period (typically it's 10 days here, and if you do a 3 or 5 day inspection time you can be attractive b/c the seller can get it back on market quicker if you find something you don't like during inspection period); non-refundable earnest money (maybe $1000 of money that you will not get back for any reason on your side - not if the seller breaches-- should the offer not go to completion - this shows you are an extremely interested buyer, but you could lose the money, so use cautiously and with the advice of your agent who knows how to correctly write that into the contract); put a limit on the repair request no required by lender - cap it at $0/as-is, or $500; a higher earnest money - like $5000, shows you are serious.

They are valued based on comps and not NOI / Cap Rate, so you lose the ability to drive appreciation, and if you cannot find good comps, they can be hard to refinance or sell.