And that is really saying something because I invested a tremendous amount of myself and time into my small business and learning to play guitar and my personal recovery and growth as a person.

Not sure if you were looking for a long-term hold on a two family, but it seems that was not playing out favorably for you. 

Sometimes having someone play devil's advocate is also useful.

If they had not found the deal or participated at all, you would not owe them anything since it was off-market and they didn't play a role. 

I have seen that play out as well.

Unless you bought RE a few years ago, created equity via successful BRRRR, flip, or do a combination you're just playing the appreciation game. 

Credit scores are a reflection of someone's ability to learning and understanding the rules of the game and haveing the discipline to play by them.If you already have good credit, already pay everything on time (autopay), then increaseing your limits will probably help you the most, because it gets your utilization down, ideally under 10%.Higher hanging fruits are average credit and account age (just have to wait for that I guess) and inquiries, which are sometimes unavoidable as real estate investors.  

And too play a little devils advocate..

I am always cynical of those that post on here stating that they have X number of dollars, but I'll play along.2.

And that was my understanding (the basics, at least :-)...Given that, the scenario that Bob presented in Deal 3 above seems unlikely to play out legally...