If you close a credit card with no balance, all you're accomplishing is lowering your borrowing power by whatever the credit limit was.

My personal attorney told me it will be too expensive to go after a bank to make them liable, and to just take a few thousand dollar loss; and so did a few other attorneys.

I think the main issue you are going to find is that there is limited inventory there, just like everywhere else.

Including your own rent of $2200 ($26,500 a year) that would be close to a combined $30k loss for the year.3.

I realized I may struggle a bit with receiving my first loan (due to limited 2 year proof of income) for the type of duplex property I really want to pursue. 

Our total monthly cash flow is $28 (living for free, plus $28 - this factors vacancy and collection loss, mortgages, reserves for replacement, etc. - I'm the appraiser...).We have nearly saved up $140,000, which happens to be about 20% for the new listing.

You dont have to limit yourself to single family rentals, there are multifamily properties that you could get ahold of. 

If the main complaints are limited to battery life, I think I'm going to give these a whirl and report back.

I will be doing a 203K Limited FHA loan (no structural changes).

$200-$300 including materials and loss due to vacancy?