As to your specific questions, I'll try to give my personal thoughts.

You might also try Karl Hausmann at Marsh Mundorf Pratt Sullivan & McKenzie in Mill Creek. he handles both personal and real estate law. 

The appraiser for your refinance would probably be the most qualified person to answer this.

While you can typically only ask for a small amount of information in regards to emotional or service animals, that also implies that the person with the dog is telling the truth. 

It really comes down to what a person would like to do…

Personally we don't.

This is new to me and I know NJ isn't the best state to be a landlord, so trying to figure out what my rights are.Secondary question - is it worth going through the small claims process to recover $7,000 from this person?

Sometimes the person you are flipping the property to might be willing to advance you the money you need if he wants the deal bad enough.2.

There's no person on that list that just invested in the stock market to get super rich. 

Personally I’d house hack it all day long to build up that portfolio.