@Nikhil Agarwal if your offer includes a due diligence period, you can back out for any or no reason.

My record is currently up for absolute pardon and will be sealed in the next 8-12 months, so I just need somewhere to live for that period until I can apply for housing through normal avenues again.Any help is very much appreciated.

So I spoke with her about it today and she said that because it’s such a short period of renting that it would only be  a few thousand. the plan is to rent it and put that money back into the house for upgrades.

@Eric Samuels I would say don't make any decisions during this period, and maybe even give yourself a 20-30 day research-only period where you just get to know your market and don't make any purchases.

Then if you know of specific future capex expenditures, you can use inflation to forecast roof replacements, etc. in 5 years or whatever period makes sense for the property. 

Or is there is also a period of time where you also can't refinance either? 

If you have extra cash (or can get some from selling/pulling money out) you might ask around and see if any lenders you know will do delayed financing where you buy with cash and fund the rehab up front but then quickly turn around a get a cash-out refinance without the typical seasoning period.

There is a 30 day notice period I need to give to the current PM company though.

Furnishing a unit, finding a PM or placing on AirBnB or VRBO, and building positive reviews only to have it potentially end in July seems like a lot of effort for a short period of STR. 

The first offer we agreed to was very strong; Pre-qualified, great credit,1k down in earnest money and gave themselves a 5-day back out period to show their enthusiasm.