Again, this is somewhere you'll need to be buttoned up - commercial mortgage brokerage firms (full disclosure, I own one) exist for this reason.

That’s all I said about that, but in my mind, I did not know of any other reasons they would be allowed to break it.

Also, security deposits should be handled very carefully (not co-mingled with personal accounts)-so this could be a reason why they want to hold on to it?  

I’m 24 years old and when I started was consistently encouraged to buy a home as quickly as possible for specific reasons.

The application fee should be non-refundable for any reason.

Pricing for the lower credit scores is higher for obvious reasons.

An excellent book on due diligence: Brian Hennessey - The Due Diligence Handbook For Commercial Real Estate: A Proven System To Save Time, Money, Headaches And Create Value When Buying Commercial Real EstateIt's reasonably in-depth but a lot of this stuff one learns from experience.

We would be able to have a down reasonable down payment. 

I invest in Arizona over California for several reasons. 

But, not pulling permits at all as a policy due to time and costs is a reason to walk away from doing business with a company.3.