Another option is to offer the owner a NET price and you pay the taxes on your side.

Perhaps the answer is to offer her a six or nine month lease.

In your scenario that kind of thing works.In a general sense many sellers use inflating the sales price,putting all these conditions in to get the bonus etc. that for the most part are not going to be obtainable.That's the part that waters down the bonuses offered by builders or regular sellers and experienced brokers and agents know this when they see those offers.If a sellers or builder is going to offer a bonus they need to stick to their promise or they lose all credibility.Not so important for a one off seller but highly important for an investor that sells multiple time or a builder that has inventory they need to keep selling.Burned brokers and agents will spread the work quick about builders or investor with bad business practices.

I've put in offers over here in California, but have no luck competing against bigger fish with $100k's of cash to offer.

At the end of the day a small bank may not have the resources to provide every service you are used to, but they are able to provide other things (funds) that the big banks were not able to offer.

The only wholesaling advice I've got to offer you is to ignore everyone who says it is the easy path to quick riches.

So is this a situation where if I know the property has an ARV of 400k, I could say something like "well a property is worth what someone is willing to pay, and I'd like to offer you $250,000 in cash, and I can close as quickly as you'd like."

I will continue to come here to get my questions answered and to offer my limited experience to others.

That is my #1 setback, getting the folks who own vacants, back taxes, phone information or current address or even any form of contact to offer a deal!

You can offer whatever you want to offer, but they don't have to take it, and if they've "approved" a price, that would normally only happen after a bpo, which means the bank believes the property is worth that "approved" price.