Two out of three bathrooms need new tile, the main bathroom just needs a good cleaning, other than that the plumbing and fixtures are great in all bathrooms. 

Make a lower offer subject to a reserve public auction, offer the seller a 10% hybrid (10% of anything you get over what you offered), make full disclosures, get right of possession (so you can clean the house up and show it to prospective buyers), build in an extension in the event you need more time and use banking days for settlement.

Can you see any sewer clean outs close to where the house was located?  

As far as I know, he's not sitting on a bunch of cash to fund rehab but title is clean and he could "owner finance" since he owns it outright. 

Lastly, does calling seem to be a better method than writing a letter to potential sellers? 

l sometimes think that these sealers work just long enough to give the flooring contractor a decent amount of getaway time.There are some solutions, but very often in these situations there are flooring types and/or conventional install methods that just aren't going to work .  

In my experiences I don't like online auction sites because some sites when they don't meet their desried price they can just cancel your bid then they'll usually put it up for bid again starting at your winning price which isnt cool. 2) yes the liens are usually wiped clean. 3) I go to courthouse auctions and only bid on properties that have open houses.

But above comment is probably right about tragedy of the commons effect on "everyone's laundry area" which can be a cleaning and utility cost issue and even vagrant or misuse issues..

After reading more on here I quickly realized I was not the first person to think of this, it is the BRRRR method.

Which method results in a more meaningful returns metric?