New appliances.

If he's worried about you revealing his "trade secrets" you can always agree to a non-disclosure of information for whatever period makes him comfy.Bare minimum: your offer should stipulate that once you go under contract demand the Seller must furnish an estoppel letter listing the terms such as length of the tenancy, who are the approved tenants, who pays which utilities, how much was the security deposit, how much is the monthly rent, who owns the appliances, and are there any other agreements written or oral between land lord and tenant? 

After a few conversations you will have a good feel for rehab costs just by looking at a property.Also, some regular trips to home depot to check out their packages for appliances and home renovations can be helpful too.The benefit of this is that with that kind of knowledge you will pick up important info along the way and you will be able to develop your own system and standard.For example I'm getting some flooring work done and by reaching out to different vendors I learned that SPC flooring is a lot more durable  and cheaper than WPC (SPC and WPC are both types of Vinyl flooring) - also by price shopping you will find one vendor is charging you $3.5 per sq ft for flooring and that same flooring is being sold elsewhere for $2.49.

If you have to replace a roof or a couple of appliances one year that can make your negative cash flow that much worse.

This house needed major updating in the kitchen and bath, some plumbing repairs, new appliances, and new paint and carpet.

Still have to budget for the other big ticket items: roof, hvac, appliances, hot water heater, bath and kitchen remodel. etc.

Are you thinking wash/dry combo or separate appliances? 

In addition, all questions, concerns, and maintenance requests should be directed to ____________ at 555-1234.Once the current management has confirmed that they sent the notice, you should follow up by sending your own letter, with additional contact info for maintenance requests, accounting questions, or general info; payment options (due date as stated on existing agreement), and advising the tenants that you will be contacting them (or asking them to contact you) to schedule a brief inspection and confirm the terms of their agreement within the next 7 days.At this meeting, unless you got an estoppel letter, I also ASK what they are currently paying; how much deposit do they have; are there any unresolved maintenance issues; any problems with the neighbors; how many pets/animals do you have; which appliances are yours; and how many cars/vehicles do you have on the property and are they all currently licensed, insured, and operable? 

Unless this is an appreciating area I would walk away very good area and property is well maintained only need to replace roofing and appliances .got new flooring , a/c and all updated very well kept.

They only gave an absurd $3,000 for appliances, so we obviously went well over that.