With limited capital and time, I feel that taking them all under option would be my best chance of cashing in on them all.

Is it in the Seattle city limits?

He does very well in sales.I have been turned down by banks, met their limit.

The area I prefer to invest in is near a big university, very limited inventory and in high demand for renting (so many investors present). 

But they had a recent bankrupcy , only 1 credit card with a $900. limit and 13 months of credit .

After finding out that we could not claim any of the losses because of income limitations, our next step became very clear.  

Yes I did makes plenty of sense and plan on continuing with quadplex until I've reached my loan limit.

I also have heard of a another specific form of syndication called a real estate limited partnership. does anyone have experience using either of these vehicles and if so would you say they are beneficial to investors?

The sky's the limit!   

I use Quicken, which is limited, but suffices because I also use property managers for my REI.