This will help you understand your rights as a landlord and the rights of your tenants.

Sec 179 allows accelerated depreciation of vehicles over 5500 lbs - and with a portion of my work being renovating properties buying a RAM was understandable.

@Victor SolomonYou may want to focus and prioritize other concerns than just the loan (though understandably without the loan, the whole deal may fall through). 

Again, I am new to real-estate, so I am understanding that the passive income from investment properties starts off as somewhat minimal and is not going to make me rich overnight.

- assuming 500hrs each, we have spent enough time this year to get to that but wondering if thats a red flag for IRS with high chance of getting audited (we travelled 7 times over the past year to work on the unit and spend at least a week each time excluding the time we spent managing the guests)- Lastly, our understanding is that each can take 50% of the final offset to our W2 assuming we prove material participation eligibility. 

I dont understand why you would do an option and record a mortgage.

But my understanding is that the majority of such properties in each major city are handled by a handful of brokers, and many never make it to the open market. 

With the Duplex now, my understanding is I file as though the rental half is a separate property and cut all expenses in half as a write off to my rental income (property tax, insurance, maintenance, improvements, etc...nothing was done specifically to either unit it was full home external work like garage and railing repairs, painting) as well as depreciating the half of the duplex that is a rental after calculating basis.It all seems very straightforward to me but I know I'd be naive not to have a second set of eyes with a professional given my lack of experience.

Mistakes that I have seen made generally always come from a lack of due diligence and understanding.

Having listings really helps you understand what the buyers are willing to do, and each of my listings would have 20-30 offers on them, with about half of the buyers offering 50k+ in DD and the other half not.