Work to save a lot of cash (Which I just reduced my 401K savings rate to only cover my employer’s full match so that’ll be a couple hundred extra each month and I’m about to fully pay off my car in six months and that’ll be an extra $500/mo.

Myself and family truly loved the property and house; just want others opinions on if this may be a mistake to proceed, or does this appear common practice for the age and location (upstate New York). 

its called a Hypothecation.. quite common..

I’ve worked with a lot of first-time buyers, and common concerns like HOA restrictions or property management costs often come up.

I am studying areas (zip code by zip code) with income levels above 45k and employment rate less than 3%.

As mentioned the most common path is to do another 1031.  

Or, it could eat up all of your profit, which is most common.)

That being said, it's very common for listing agents to not respond to emails, texts and phone calls from buyer's agents with interested buyers- you'd never know if they are doing this or not, but I'll tell you it happens all of the time. 

@Mauricio Quintana -  Split payments are super common. 

It is also not stable, HOA increases and special assessments are common.