A high bid won't necessarily win if it's contingent on an inspection. And even if it wins and you try to renegotiate after the inspection, there is less incentive for them to renegotiate. They may just contact the next highest bidder and consider your deal done.

In this situation, an inspection contingency will give you the option to walk away based on the results. If you use it to try and negotiate the purchase price, the seller will remember that they had multiple offers to begin with and will likely choose to tell you to pound sand so that they can re-list and go with another buyer.

If I were in your shoes, either choose not to offer or offer a price you'd feel comfortable paying no matter the inspection results.

Is it truly a fixer upper? Fixer uppers normally are cash sales, and they are sold as is.

I disagree. Many fixer uppers are regular sales. Only a subset that are not habitable and don’t meet underwriting requirements for mortgage have to be cash sales. That being said, many sellers prefer cabs sales as they can move more quickly and less can go wrong.

Who is selling the house? By that I mean is it an REO (bank owned) or is it owned by a person/people that occupy the home or did occupy it?

It makes a difference in your offer strategy because a bank owned property isn't going to renegotiate sales price after the inspection and an individual seller might renegotiate after the inspection.

In a sellers market, fixer uppers are usually bought by investors with cash for flips. Its very hard for a first time home buyer to compete in this type of market. I had a flipper that bought directly from the owner for $115k, did absolutely nothing to it. We put it on the market the same day he closed on it for $149900, and it sold in the 180's to another cash buyer who fixed it up and sold it for $285k