It has worn away to bare wood in some spots.

- Is the Section 8 rent giving you a premium rent payment vs open market?

Found another guy on my facebook group that had fought it the wrong way on a rehab in the Heights, and he ended up having to take 5 feet off his porch, but he did change the footprint going back with concrete under the wooden deck porch, rather than keeping the wood deck framing the same, and he extended the concrete out past the porch itself, which did in fact change the original foot print, my project manager has been doing these rehabs 40 years in Houston, but this thing really stressed him out, and he knows the inspectors really well, the tipping point for him was that they were using a aerial google map image of the house and porch, which isn't valid for a gazillion number of reasons, we are going back in this morning at 8 am hoping to just have a different inspector, and getting a 2nd opinion, because our recent survey shows the building line and house structure and porch are within the measurements that they are calling for, thank God for that!

I would suspect things can get handled out side of escrow in these areas.. as in behind the wood shed.

I even threw in some premium things not found in any comps (LED can lights and quartz counter tops; they didn't cost me any more than normal stuff would and they look great).

Wood beam!

William, your insurance premium will be based on the building value and # of units. 

Does anybody know if buyer's premium can be financed in my conventional loan?

For the exterior the big expenses is that they will require wood windows (at least on the front) along with half round gutters and clapboard siding, brick, or masonry covered walls.  

If not im am surprised with suck think wood  1" decking and 3/4" plywood (assuming).