Any changes here could make that dream a lot harder to achieve.I see this coming... pulling MLS content from major websites like Zillow is floating around.

Its not the contractors responsibility to float your job with his funds ( unless this has been agreed upon ) . 

I bring up new paradigm here :it's because of too much expansion of money.What I mean by that is because we have lot of money increasing floating around with downpayment as little as 5-20% can already purchase a house with 30 year fixed debt, the number of potential purchasers are increased by a lot, while supply is diminishing, the amount of liquid hard money is increasing, and liquid money is always going to hard asset like residential.if you cut 30 year fixed program and gov no longer print money, the buying power would reduce.

-What does the rate float to - what is "Margin + Index"?

Red state and blue states seem to be drifting apart rapidly on property rights. 

Sadly I am selling them to float a commercial project that we lost a gym tenant with Covid (it's a sad mess).

There are two types of nuisance, criminal nuisance and non-criminal nuisance:""Non-Criminal Nuisance Example; Smoking and the tenant's tobacco smoke drifts into another rental unit, but only if the landlord prohibits smoking in all units."

I’ve heard from others it’s been taught as finding their “pain point” — whatever floats your boat as I’m not into fancy names.  

The appraisers I've seen at work always measure the exterior of the finished building, i.e. the outside of the stucco or brick...Maybe someone else measured the interior rooms as @Chris Seveney said, and now you have 2 numbers floating around.It actually could be in your favor if you can get the seller to use the same square footage number and apply it to the smaller SF.... :-)

You are floating an idea, but you have to tighten it up because it will make the search for the assumption easier if you target certain locations and get some help with those.