Removing an old finish by sanding, unless you are taking off a lot (like a floor re-sanding), is an extremely poor way to do it. It will not uniformly remove the old finish (from the pores) and can easily result in an uneven finish when staining. I'd recommend a chemical stripper done carefully with masking off areas not being stripped. The "wood conditioners" don't work all that well. They tend to work a bit better if you ignore the label directions and let them dry overnight instead of the less than 30 minutes (or whatever the label suggests). A better approach would be to use a good quality gel stain. There are other "wash coats" that you can use such as 5% solids shellac, hide glue, or other sealers based on your intended top coat. But these are more complicated to find than just grabbing a gel stain off the shelf. Almost all things with Tung Oil on the label are called "Tung Oil Finish" because they somewhat resemble tung oil. In fact, most of them are not tung oil, nor do they contain any tung oil in natural form or as a component of manufacture. Depending upon brand, it's either an linseed oil & oil-based varnish (typically alkyd or urethane) blend or a varnish, both of which are highly thinned (up to 70%) with paint thinner to make it a wiping finish. It's not that oil-varnish blends or thinned varnishes are bad finishes. They have their place. But what you are reading on the label is pure marketing fabrication. Pure oil finishes are very poor in excluding moisture (some are actually hygroscopic). The more percentage of oil in the oil-varnish blend, the less water resistance the resulting finish will have. A 100% oil finish will be an in-the-wood finish and will not have the protection that a varnish will. Hand-oil on a handrail needs periodic cleaning. Oil-only won't be working in your favor. Every true Tung Oil I have ever seen will say something like 100% tung oil and will not have any thinners that can be labeled mineral spirits, stoddard solvent, naphtha, [light]aromatic hydrocarbons, some other alias, or refer to the CAS number for the above on the MSDS, or very rarely, on the label. In my opinion, there is little reason to use pure tung oil. It's more expensive, looks identical to linseed oil, more difficult to apply, and if you don't do it right, sand between all coats, and have enough curing between coats, you get white spots that are irreversible and need to be stripped off. (See, KW, I do know what a "pre-stain" wood conditioner is.)

Honestly, people were just hardier in days of yore. My very scary, steep, hardwood floor staircase in my 1913 bungalow had no signs of ever having a handrail. I installed one for ME, no kids involved. I had a handyman put up one that looked just like Marie's above. When I moved from that house, I took it off to get my furniture down. Pretty simple actually. To be honest I would not use a velvet or other rope. I need something to really grab onto if I slip on the hardwood floors; not something that could rip or pull away. Oh, I also found that investing in non-slip socks is a must!

Thank you all for your feedback! I appreciate it, and I’m actually really surprised that so many of you think it looks nicer this way lol. We are in touch with the builder and they have been pretty responsive and will get back to us soon with a resolution. At this point, I can live with it if it’s going to cause huge delays to get this fixed.. also excellent point about the safety aspect of things catching. Thank you all once again!

I understand that OP needs it to be cheap until closing because this is a lender requirement (not unusual) and if it is fixed before closing, it becomes a fixture and stays with the property even if the buyer doesn't close. CONSIDER: A solution to this would be a rehab type loan rather than the typical purchase loan. Benefit to the buyer is they don't need to resort to expensive hard money type loan as mentioned up thread. Also it gives the buyer the TIME to figure out a permanent solution. The buyer can close right away on a rehab loan. The disadvantage to a rehab loan is that the interest rate is slightly higher than your typical purchase mortgage. Something to explore.