As an investor, I always ask what the notes are (including taxes and insurance) and what the outstanding mortgage balance is. If the seller is unwilling to divulge this information, it's obvious that this is NOT a motivated seller and I'm on the phone with someone who is not a prospective client.

I make at least two offers on a property. One, an all cash offer won't be affected by the balance or the note, because it'll be 70% of Full Market Value (FMV) minus the repairs. If you owe more than that, you probably won't sell it to me (some do, however to avoid foreclosure).

I'll make you a FULL PRICE offer if you'll keep your existing financing in place while I get one of my buyers qualified to refinance and cash you out. In that case I need to know the monthly payment in order to see if I can even get enough from my buyer monthly to cover the note. ARMs and other bad loans make that difficult sometimes. In those cases the seller may be willing to continue paying a portion of the payment until the refinance occurs. They'd prefer to pay $500/ mo instead of the $1800/mo they now pay.

It always depends on the seller's motivations.

HTH