Is a 22,000 dollar discount real money when a bank sells occupied?

Take a bank owned three bedroom listed at a number that works if delivered vacant. The listing agent says the bank will not deliver possession, and a former owner is still in the property past the sale date. The as is occupied price runs roughly 22,000 under what the same house would list at delivered empty, based on two comparable REOs the same asset manager sold last quarter. The 22,000 is meant to compensate the buyer for possession risk, and the harder question is what that risk actually costs. Timelines to regain possession vary a lot by state and by county, which makes this exactly the kind of question a local attorney should answer rather than a forum. The cost extends beyond the legal process itself. It includes the carry while that process runs, the condition of the interior once possession is regained, and the chance the occupant holds a claim or a tenancy nobody disclosed. The case for taking the deal is that most investors will not, and that reluctance is precisely where the discount lives. The case against is that an unknown duration hold with an unknown interior at the end of it is not a 22,000 dollar risk, it is an open ended one, and a first purchase is a bad place to find the ceiling on that. The room's usual rule is to treat any occupied REO as a legal timeline problem first and a pricing problem second, and to build a negotiated move out budget into the offer before it goes in, not after closing.