I'm willing to bet we have a lot of IT people here.Good luck!

Your best bet is to make a trip to the Public Services Building downtown and speak to the Building Department Counter.

You need cooling for 8-9 months of the year I bet. 

You do have to keep your eye on the long term, while mitigating risk and hedging your bets in the short term ... and that takes skill, capital, and patience.

But part of me still wants to mow the lawns of a vacant rental and do some odds and ends that the handyman charges too much for.

If you are doing a significant rehab odds are you are replacing most of the utilities in the house anyway (especially if its an older home which most in NJ are), but you need to get the ball rolling asap on the process as it takes time.

you don't want to be tied into those big payments when something goes south, and you can bet it will. 

Your best bet, may be like Bob suggests, is to sell a partial for now until you get further seasoning.

This information will never show up in a report, but could move the needle on the final number the appraiser comes to.Your best bet is to go through the report with a fine tooth comb and figure out whether or not the appraiser came to a legitimate conclusion based on the information available.  

Again, while I can not say whether or not this was clearly explained to you I can say it is common practice and seems odd you would give a deposit and continue looking for other properties.