I am an IT contractor, I get paid via an agency company as a W2 employee.

NJ is a tough market.

I'm a contractor at a medical clinic, and don't get any of the perks like the employees do. 

So you and your agent need to look at the data for comparable pending and (very) recently sold homes, as well as whatever active homes may be available - because solds and pending aside, the value of this prospective home will be comparatively lower if there are 15 similar homes on the market for buyers to look at compared to if there are just one, two, or zero other homes like this for buyers.And I know it's tough with HUD homes because they don't take escalators, but in the end, armed with your market analysis data, you need to bid your 'walk away' price, meaning that if you bid a dollar under what it goes for you'd be OK with not getting it, rather than kicking yourself and wishing you had bid a dollar more.

You can definitely have a more hands on approach and vet each contractor and try to manage them from afar but unless you luck out and find an incredible GC, who is not very busy, this will be quite tough. 

The generally accepted definition of a small business is a firm with less then 500 employees and depending on the industry somewhere between $750,000 to $38.5m in annual revenue.

It's tough because we have a lot of emotional attachment to this house, but we've decided it's in the best interest of our future selves to invest in real estate now, and part of that plan is to move out of this home, and purchase another for 5% down.

@Joseph Ramirez Zillow is a tough place to find an agent relationship.

Are you an employee or an independent contractor in this situation? 

The airline, cruise, and hospitality industry plans to layoff thousands of employees.