Generally, the best thing to do is remove unnecessary items that may fail and cause repair bills.

The seller and I have offered to increase the security deposit to $2,000 to ensure the new owner gets the property as it is, and have itemized the items that are to remain.

My first item of biz would be to get me a 3bed-2bath-2car place to live in one of the older established areas as I prefer living in something of that era.  

One of the things I have read about is how to figure out how much it will cost to fix a home from a very good book I brought on this website by walking through house and itemizing cost one by one and it has giving me a good understanding of that method.I have come across others who use another method that does not rely on itemizing cost.

Additionally, ask the neighbors about assessments in recent years for big ticket items.

The City did indeed conduct an inspection and found items that didn't have permits, so I'll have to pull those and have them inspect. 

But wait…..your lender gets to add those 3 items back as income.

Repair Estimation/Budgeting - Ability to create detailed Scopes of Work & repair costs budgetsBudget Tracking - Ability to track your actual expenses against your initial budgetScheduling - Ability to create a project plan & track project progressChecklists/To Dos - Ability to track daily to-dos and checklists of items that need to be completedCalendars - Ideally all of your Schedules & To-Dos feed into a Calendar that you can use to manage all of your projects in one location.Document Management - Place to store project documents and photosHere are some Project Management tools that you might consider:Trello/Zoho Projects/Basecamp  - General project management software that includes tasks, Gantt scheduling, calendars, project forums, document storage & team collaboration toolsBuilderTrend / Co-Construct - These tools are built specifically for custom homebuilders/remodelers and have a lot of functionality. 

So big box retail is starting to have a smaller space at the front of the building like Target or around the side and consumers can order and pick up items and also might do more shopping at the physical store.

The contingency is used to cover risk...Risk that you missed/forgot estimate items, risk that you underestimated items or risk that something unanticipated needs to be repaired.