I am small potatoes at this point so not escrowing is helpful for me, specifically. sirck- I looked into getting out of my escrow arrangement with Chase a few years ago and they did not allow it.

Am I required to have reverse osmosis filters under each sink with a separate drinking water faucet? 

Reverse Osmosis (RO) filters are much better at removing lead, but are usually setup as point of use filters just for drinking water at the kitchen sink.

We're small potatoes and would rather save our cash and ride this out. 

I had no idea how much I learnt by osmosis!

Just give us the meat and potatoes so we can get going.

Agents are so buys right now, they are not changing the status of the listings for 1-2 days, as they are focusing efforts on responding to offers, their clients, etc.Right now, this increased activity is most impacting 2 categories of homes for sale:1) The hot potatoes- the properties that really stand out as the best STR opportunities- and the the most attractive or generally best view homes.

He suggested either replacing all of the plumbing in the house or getting a whole house reverse osmosis filtration system.  

I have some mutual funds, stocks, etf's, IRAs, etc too, but RE is the meat and potatoes.

Sadly, this percentage of security deposit is going to be small potatoes compared to legal fees to settle the matter in court.