I am just asking them to pay for the materials and expenses I paid out of pocket to cover their failures to live up to the lease. 

Zestimate is $315K.Cash flow won't be great for me since I will be taking an expensive loan at 7%.Expenses would be: mortgage+taxes+home insurance= $1300Management fee of $100 will be waived for the first year.There are renters in the place with a contract till June 2019 and they pay $1635.What I'm considering is that:Get the place, have little to no cash flow and when the renters contract ends in June 2019 have them out and renovate the place and:1. rent it out for more or2. if the market is higher/ home value is higher after renovation, sell for a profit.What do you think?

Can I just offer to pay off of their mortgage, and if the deal is good enough, offer to pay more to help them with moving expenses and such to get them out of the house faster?

Additionally, if you're coming with that much down, you'll definitely have PMI, which I don't see included in the expenses.

We will still review with an attorney as we really liked a BiggerPockets post where someone recommended adding a list of incidental expenses that will be deducted from any deposit (well defined chargeable items vs wear and tear). 

Evictions in my city are very expensive, so I always look for solutions. 

The allure of being able to cap major expenses for an AC or Heat pump at 450$ a year plus 100$ per incident charge seems like a good way to keep your costs fairly predictable.I suppose, if you pay this thing for 10 years, and have some minor things like a dishwasher/ AC issues/ Heat pump issues and they fix it, could be a wash more or less.   

Not sure your situation, but the VA funding fee is a large expense unless you are waived due to disability rating.  

Also, here's the critical thing: For cash flowing properties, purchase price is not the key factor, income and expenses are.

While some contractors work on a 1099 basis, I worked as a W-2 for safe harbor reasons (the IRS has vague rules about who is a contractor and who is an employee -- picking the wrong one can get expensive for the parties involved when the IRS disagrees with your choice).I also had to learn how to live on a lumpy income stream as a contractor (if the agency didn't have a project for me to work on [no "billable hours"], I didn't get a paycheck).