But yes you can and you proved it.

Or is there an option to get rid of PMI by only proving you have 20% equity?

There might be something in the loan docs stating you need to be present for X amount of days but your lender would need to care and prove that you were not.  

I figured receipts and invoices would prove what I paid out, just wasn't sure if the lender's inspector might say "this doesn't look like $15k in work completed, it looks like $5k so that's what we'll reimburse.."

I passed first time but it was not my normal  never study take the test first one done and kill it..

So after years of studying real estate investment (and also years in site development) I have what I think is a nice deal put together/under contract, and it looks good to me!

This way, even though you may not be on the loan,  YOU will be able to document payment history & some lenders will allow this to prove ownership. 

Doing the math and looking at the big picture proves that selling right now for a small profit would be foolish so I've chosen to hold on to it!

As far as the depreciation piece, I'm planning on engaging with Yonah Weiss on how much we can potentially depreciate this year via a cost segregation study, and accelerate that depreciation while we still can! 

Prove that you are better than the other 99% and you will get plenty of deals.