Wish I had vetted my first contractor (who I fired) better before use him, but in a way it’s good that I didn’t because it got me stated.

Believe it or not (sarcastically speaking, if not obvious) - investors use day laborers without any documentation and under-the-radar contractors who never file or pay taxes.

As an agent if you represented a seller and the buyer was a week late and going to be even later (and you are not sure if they will ever actually close because they can just tell you anything without per diem or extra EMD), would you roll over and tell your client "well tough" or would you get them something for the failure of the other side to meet contract or at least a guarantee to protect them?

So negotiate every contract and watch for the contractor expense creep.

Have a bad contractor, your sunk.

The second bidder is a large national $2B or so a year contractor, with certainly the best attorneys, and they walked away instead of fighting after meetings with the agency.....go figure.

The $30,000 repair costs would include what and do you have contractor estimates? 

Disclaimer: still new to this, but in the same boat as you with trying to determine rehab cost (not flipping though).I would contact a general contractor and see if they can give you a rough estimate for free. $85-90/sq ft homes are about what my area is going for but older homes with larger lots.

It is impractical to change the engineer at this point.I think this is a pretty common problem, very much like being presented a change order (on a time and material basis) by a General Contractor, except it is much hard to determine the time needed for an engineer to finish his job.How do you deal with such a situation?

Along with that I’m looking to build my team as well. realtors, contractors, attorneys, buyers, lenders, etc.