@Matthew Olszak - there is a stairway from the back deck of the first floor apt, down to the basement stairs, so there would be some protection from the elements.

I put in a few wireless light switches because despite the previous renovators going cray cray with the outlets and electrical wiring, they didn't bother making 3 way switches where a few three way switches would have made sense, like the stairways.

All you're doing is paying for all that negative CF upfront.Third, think of a stairway in a house. 

Where was I...Find a good contract, and find a good investor friendly attorney (closing agent).These are just a minimal set of steps... but consider this..and I said this before when I was still like you.. a mere mortal...Imagine a curved stair way.

My favorite thing is to build shelving into the walls - for example, our stairway to the basement has shelving for cleaning supplies, which we built into the stud space of the walls.

(h) Floors, walls, ceilings, stairways and railings maintained in good repair.

Or a handrail fails and a kid falls and busts his head open on stairway ice because your PM knows nothing about how concrete should be finished and let a bad fix slip?

My 2nd floor apartment had a difficult stairway.

Here's something from Fannie's website:Gross building area, which is the total finished area (including any interior common areas, such as stairways and hallways) of the improvements based on exterior measurements, is the most common comparison for two-family to four-family properties.

Does it have the same style stairway?