What are some of the major to-do items leading up to closing and after?

I really am at a loss as to where to start.

.- Next major item is structural which can have significant cost to repair.

Your money helps protect against the lender taking a loss and makes it less likely that you will walk away from the project.

Item Cost Life years Months Cost Per Month Roof $ 6,000.00 25 300 $ 20.00 HVAC $ 4,500.00 15 180 $ 25.00 Hot H2O $ 550.00 8 96 $ 5.73 Flooring Carpet $ 1,800.00 5 60 $ 30.00 Flooring Laminate Wood $ 1,800.00 10 120 $ 15.00 Interior Paint $ 2,500.00 6 72 $ 34.72 Exterior Paint $ 3,000.00 8 96 $ 31.25 Revamp Plumbing $ 1,500.00 20 240 $ 6.25 Revamp Electrical $ 3,500.00 30 360 $ 9.72 Misc $ 200.00 1 12 $ 16.67 Monthly CapEx Allowance _ _ _ $ 179.34 

The irony is that although you think "having to pay thousands of dollars" for an attorney is a bad idea, the other 2 parties clearly thought the property was worth the legal risk-- they were willing to risk their own thousands of dollars, a breach of contract, and loss of the asset over it, not to mention some sort of likely punitive damages since they were a lender and the property was REO.

Due diligence often gets boiled down to some checklist of items folks seem to think they need to do.  

@Vick Galu  There are certainly some items that are negotiable regarding closing costs...however, lenders can have restrictions on what would be considered an "allowable" cost that is negotiable.  

You actually have a paper loss of $2,922.

Misc extra rehab items that you didn't think about.