Ybitz the viewing of any home is ultimately dtermined by the seller. If the home is contingent and you want to view it simply ask your realtor to check to see if it is available for showing.
Unfortunately the success of a short sale to me, falls 100 percent on the quality of the listing agent. If the listing agent sucks or has to much going on the short sale process will drag on and more then likely fail. The agent representing the buyer has little to no visibility into the diligence of the listing agent. For instance, we bid on a condo thursday at auction that was listed as a contingent sale on the mls. Of course it was good friend battiata who had it listed. I have many short sale offers in right now for various buyers and the contrasting quality for how the listing agents are performing is substantial. In a few cases I have warned my buyers that it is likely that the home will foreclose because the listing agent sucks. In other cases the listing agents are good. In one case, and I hate to say it the listing agent hired an outside negotiator to handle the deal, at the buyers expense, but that negotiator is being very diligent with very frequent updates. So again I cannot stress enough it is the quality of the listing side.
As far as making an offer on an already contingent home, there is nothing wrong with that. Many short sales have flaky buyers and as rates move more buyers will back out. It cannot hurt to try but keep expectations low.
