This is unusual.

They do reduce some deposits if they are large and unusually just FYI

No, he's required to use one selected by a third party company if this is through any government-backed loan.It's not unusual to have a seller pay for a 2nd appraisal.  

@Kyle Majors MAI appraisers use market rents because actual rents could by unusually high or low depending on a lot of factors.

Since I am not likely to live there more than 3 - 4 years, I decided to rent instead of buy..especially since property taxes are high in this part of the country (even though I know all costs factor into rent).I noticed an unusual pattern. 

I don't know about permitting issues where you are, up here in most old buildings, so much unpermitted work has been done over many, many decades and most buyers and sellers just ignore it unless it constitutes an unusual safety hazard.

They said it was an unusual request, and it took two requests to get their response. 

Seller always chooses the title company in my market, and it's not unusual for an Agent to influence the Seller's decision.

Nothing unusual about that.

.- Pregnant wife starts feeling unusually sick almost immediately, moves back into old apartment, immediately feels only "normal" pregnancy sick, refuses to enter house citing the health of the baby (good mommy).- Hubby naturally follows pregnant wife back to the 1br apartment (good daddy).- Re-remediates mold stuff (turns out the sellers hired a shoddy/cheap outfit to do the work originally). - So we have 3 separate sets of documentation that ties this all up: seller disclosures, appraisal, and the paperwork from this re-remediation. - By this point wifey is in the tail end of her 3rd trimester, obviously no one is moving anywhere at this point except onto a hospital bed once in labor.- They rent out House A to cover the mortgage, 12 month lease. - Wife has baby, apartment too small, no fault evictions in Oakland are a pain in the butt.- They purchased another home with an owner occupant loan and 5% down a few months after closing on their first, about a half mile away (job transfer to other side of the country = that exception is granted on a routine basis, it being the exact same neighborhood makes this unusual).- Underwriter would have been within reason to ask for a birth certificate to line the date of that up with the rest, but in this case elected not to.Note the unusual circumstances surrounding this.