My wife and I have made several offers on multifamily houses recently but keep being beaten out by (lower) cash offers.

Perhaps they did listen and just understood you weren't offering anything that was useful to them.

@Mia Kirsch we actually got a 2nd FHA but hard to find a lender who actually knew that was a thing and had to be more than 75 miles away for a new job as we didn’t meet the other criteria like larger family.

We sent one of those “love letters” through our agent and he sold to us for the same price as the other guys offer because he liked us.

You could consider a sellers home inspection (paid for by you) prior to listing the property so that buyers make their offers based on known areas of attention.

Not me, seen too many bad roofing jobs in my life.

The most I think it can get you is 30, and this would need to be a nice job and good ceiling height. 

You can do two things to make your offers more attractive to sellers.1.

Most of the time, they are seeking to rely on exemptions Section 506(b) or Section 506(c) to avoid having to register their offering with the SEC.

I've even made an offer on a distressed property in my last trip and had a great experience negotiating and trying to workout a deal.