I left a voicemail message regarding this. I called the mortgage companies you listed. One company was talking about "Municipal Mortgage Program" (http://www.masshousing.com) and the other was talking about FHA. Although the Municipal Mortgage Program permits the mortgage company to hire its own appraisers and so on, the FHA loan program is far more strict. In fact, from my research, an FHA loan could mean an extremely long drawn out process and would ultimately mean not even closing by Oct 31st, let alone any time earlier. I am very worried about this process dragging on for too long and will be contacting the other buyer about offers. Thanks.