Moreover, the discipline required to save for a large down payment often reflects better financial management skills.

Emotion side is that it was my wife's and late husband's house, so she wants to sell.  

One more tip – people remember stories that trigger their emotions.

I personally prefer flexibility but having structured amortization does provide discipline if principal reduction is an optimal outcome for you.  

If it needs to be changed, I'll change it and if it needs to be deleted, I'll delete it and move on.One thing it won't be is flippant, emotionally charged, personal or attacking. 

Another thing I struggle with is that at one point the big house where my son grew up was 800K, and now its only 550k, so that's another issue I am having in addition to an emotional attachment to that house.

Motivation is an emotional thing.

Get demo done as quickly as possible with a larger crewHave a clear vision for the property up frontHaving a higher quality finish drove an emotional appeal for the property and got it sold very quickly in a tough market to sell

A flipper is trying to get the highest sales price possible so they will make the house look really nice so a primary home buyer becomes emotionally invested in the house and makes an offer. 

PM’s I’m not defending the unlicensed plumber but that’s how so many of those companies make margin, if you want someone licensed the easiest way is to self manage a property (I have a duplex 1.5 away I self manage, have a great plumber, he’s literally replacing a hot water heater tomorrow while I’m 1.5 hours away) as far as the future, it’s really important to try to take the emotion out which I know can be difficult, is this a property that has had issues but can be corrected and become a profitable and relatively easy property to manage.