Promissory note and mortgage documents are prepared and they are paying for a lawyer to examine them... deal is moving forward and target closing date is next week.

Josh:You may find @Julie Macd's recent thread on her examination of turnkey providers in Kansas City helpful.

You will need to examine the historic performance of the business and then conservatively project the future performance.  

I was a Tax Examiner at the IRS and Also worked in their Criminal Investigation Division. 

Reasonable expenses might include the cost of the title examination, preparation of a survey, and attorney's fees.However, if the seller acted in bad faith, your state's law may allow additional money damages.

Thank you for the kind words - at 75 years old now - I remember years ago when this I became motivated to invest in real estate (really -  my motivation was to make money and quick my low paying job)  I use to take every class and seminar on real estate investing and would read as much as I could all the time about real estate investing -  that is when I was 21 years old, some of the information was junk (seminars leaders trying to make money selling courses and useless information)  and some were really great, but at the time I didn't know what I didn't know, I finally got the nerve and courage to go out and try some of those crazy formulas they were talking about - and guess what - some of those far out creative financing techniques started to work for me - it was really scary because I started to make money - more money than I ever thought was possible with my limited formal education back than, I discovered I made more money than the president of the company I worked for - needless to say - I quit that job and devoted more time to making offers and collecting those large assignment fees - now even today at my age I continue to make offers - at this time the offers have lots of zeros in them ---- so all that good and useless education  paid off.You best teacher is the market - get out there and make offers, look at 50 houses - but don't make offers on those properties until you find the one deal that is absolute right for the profit making - just keep good records - listen to the sellers, do your comps, learn how to write "skinny contract offers", practice "Control and Roll" principals of controlling real estate with no money and assign your contracts using accelerated sales methods. 

It was a little nerve racking for sure but I made 300% + on that first deal.  

Examine market rents and try to pretty up the property to raise rents moderately?

Since you say you are new you should consider utilizing the services of a contractor or home inspector to examine the home with you.

And Jim, isn't a letter of intent leave you at more a risk the seller backs out while you're working to bring buyers aboard whether by the seller losing their nerve or encountering another more favorable offer?