Once you pay it off, it goes back to normal relatively quickly (within 1.5 months).

Your contractors statements and behavior seem to fall within the range of normal experiences in my opinion.

Much preferred over normal size homes.

Hi Kris,Unless the sellers are really cooperative, it honestly sounds easier to just do a normal offer and flip/BRRRR using cash or hard money.

Honestly, my biggest hesitation would be that the winters haven't been as good as they normally are for skiing! 

The thing is, is this normal?

Many ways to skin a cat. 

I see the same open listing I would normally would list on list on Zillow from my colleagues.

I've read/heard it somewhere that you should just refer to it as an additional deposit so that you can use the funds for non-pet related matters if the issue comes up and the normal deposit funds have been depleted. 

The problem is, economic contractions (recessions) are a normal market of a free market economy.