I like to keep my buy and holds in lower economic areas for reasons you stated - if a renter loses their job and has to downgrade from a higher rental market, I have now captured them into possible renters for my property.  

If he didn't want to be charged for the items then he should have had them repaired PRIOR to the move out date and when keys were turned over.What exactly is he arguing about?

Is there a law that specifically prohibits the closing company not to disclose the buyer's itemized closing costs ?

I don't know why Ray left RealtyShares, but my take on AlphaFlow is that they've (correctly) identified that there's going to be tremendous competition at the platform level (as each competes against the other for customers and deals, driving down margins), and that an aggregation play is a less crowded space in the market that also allows them to capture lots of data about dealflow and performance across the market.

In addition, some operating expenses are not NOI expenses, so you need "above the line" and "below the line" to allow for those items, such as advertising and commissions.

You are wise to keep an eye on every line item, just be open-minded in your approach to handle each item.  

While reading the OG question and the following responses, I was awaiting to read a response that really captured both sides and included the specific details rather than just a pile of opinions.

Find items that interest you and flip them online.

They won't know until it's closing day and they're hit with a line item they don't expect.

Say you end up getting a few thousand under ARV estimate and an item comes up during rehab that costs $3,000.