My suggestion is that in submitting the offer, you make it crystal clear that the only reason you are rolling out an escalation clause is because you want the property badly and just don't know how high you need to go to win and NOT because you aren't willing to pay a premium.  

When inheriting a tenant do you have a questionnaire that you have them fill out to make sure that the procedures the seller gave you match up?  

House-hacking is absolutely correct, except that I am married, and have had tremendous difficulty selling that to the lady.For now, we're starting to do flips on the SFR side, and I partition some of the winnings into the buy-and-hold portfolio.

Rarely happens but in case I know my schedule is awful I'll plan ahead to do this. realtors use lock boxes so their is a way to track and approve someone to view a place with ID verification.I've lost no time so it's a win.

Persist and you will WIN!

I am trying to understand what exactly the process looks like after the buyer wins and bid and what some of the pitfalls are...

The IRS wants a matching tax I.D.

If someone else wins bid, then ask if you can put in a backup offer so you can be next in line before it hits market again.

If you're going to deduct large repair expenses on your taxes, you can create a separate line item for those renovations and match up the numbers with your invoices.

This creates a WIN-WIN Situation and gives the Realtor incentive, to work harder on your behalf.