Your holding costs will eat away at your profit if the next contractor can't start for a couple of weeks.You could fire this guy and out of spite he places a mechanics lien on your property to screw with you and delays your ability to sell the property until you can clear it up.

You will have to develop a mechanism internally for BS Detection.

I have a college degree in business with an emphasis in real estate.  

There is a real emphasis on development in this area.  

Mohammad,For a small retail storefront as you are describing, I would expect that the tenant would be responsible for all utilities, trash collection if it is not city pickup and maintenance of the any existing mechanicals (e.g.

So a little about myself… I am a full time mechanical engineer working in the aerospace industry.

If you alter a house too far, it will be difficult to undue should you need/want to sell it as a SFH in the future.Fourth, cost of renovations - with additional bedrooms comes the need for additional bathrooms (we aim for a ratio of 1 bath for every 2-3 rooms) and ventilation {it is almost guaranteed that the house was never designed to be occupied at the density you describe above (turning dining and living rooms into bedrooms) and you will need to add mechanical ventilation.  

I always have an inspection contingency in my offers; not for anything cosmetic, but for structural/mechanical damage that may not be noted by the seller.J.

if the house is in decent shape with all mechanicals there it would be worth around 10k or so maybe 20k. 

Have the attorney include some kind of tie-breaking mechanism.