For a game that was heralded as modable, there are way too many key things which can’t be changed. Towns only accepting “goods”, time, and some other stuff.
My suggestion for time:
Have a slider, 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 whatever. Let’s say 1 is the speed now. 1 day, one second, or whatever it is. 2 is 1 day 2 seconds, 3 is 1 day 3 seconds, etc. At the same time, you need to adjust the loan payment (keep having maintenance come off at the same interval every few seconds (not based on days) so your time could go as fast as it is now, or as slow as 10x this would allow player adjustment, and have everything else continue at pace and increase loan payment as needed to balance out time. Done. Very simple fix that would let people play as they want.