Lawn moving, clean up when done. 

Landlord shall not be obligated to clean, decorate, alter, repair, or otherwise improve the rental, either before or after the execution of this lease, unless agreed to in writing as part of this Agreement.

This homeowner decides he wants to back out of a contract after we invested our time and efforts into coaching him how to get rid of his  bad drug using and drug dealing tenants which we had permission to record cleaning out the home, offering to help him sell his belongings on Facebook getting rid of pests and beginning our re-hab.

It was PURE LUCK that somehow I discovered it and it would have cost $73K to clean it all up.The reason you have a partner is not so you can split the profits 50-50.

I am working on getting my first rental property within the next year and starting out by cleaning up my finances (paying off credit card debt).

Nowadays window units can cost hundreds of dollars and they can break down if not cleaned regularly.

Around the toilets and bath tubs, feel the floor to see if it is soft, this is an indication of rotted wood floors, big issues.Roof look for double layer of shingles or age. you can look in the city, permit search, for the last time of replacement, if they tell you is new ask for the permits.Sewages and water lines, yes Cast Iron and black pipes (mostly commercial) can be an issue but look for the clean out and how far it is from trees.

And @David Bergmann, I like those very pragmatic solutions.

Have you kept your credit clean or do you carry debt? 

Cleaned the property and painted, and little by little getting the yard in good shape.