The whole property is not reclassified into a shorter useful life, just specific items.

You talk about "offloading" the paperwork to the buyers agent but if you knew anything about the process, each agent involved has specific items and paperwork they are responsible for, I dont know many agents who are going to come in and do all the listing side work for you just for their buyers side commission. 

The way I bid is they can choose whatever finish they want on a specific item and I cap it, anything over is extra, (i.e. 10/sf for tiles and finish material up to $3/sf), it means that if they order a $8/sf travertine, they'll add $5/sf as a change order, that way they can choose whatever they want.To the OP, a list of scope without corresponding line bid is dangerous, that is why your lender require it, they could charge you 45k demo and 10k everything else to arrive at the total 55k, it's called front loading, and it is legal but unethical.

I'd like to address some of the specific items conveyed in this thread.With respect to the Birmingham situation from many years ago, all of our buyers were compensated for their losses (as the author of that thread confirmed towards the end of the thread).

Sometimes when I am looking for a specific item, one will have it and the other two won't.

I also had to contact the city inspectors who left us a notice to stop all work (even though we were working on non-HPOZ specific items) and had to nicely work my way through the different levels and was able to keep one of our fees at $300 instead of around $1200. 

But even then, the investor-friendly ones can give you specific items on what would have to be fixed in order to qualify.

I am making a checklist of items to look at in each unit, covering all items for unit from flooring type, need to replace, overall condition of unit, specific items such as doors, windows, cabinets, etc. 

There are circumstances that you do want to control M&M but that usually happens on very specific items that you already are planning on taking the extra liability on. 

If we ever run into a situation where we need more or specific items, we will just amazon prime them direct to our cleaner and she will drop them by.