My questions are:  1) if CI and friends are so "excited to lend you money" why is it so hard to borrow with good credit +cash without the lender spending all of yours? 

You got yourself into it and can certainly get yourself out of it.Trim the fat...If you're spending too much of your income and falling down on your obligations, the party is over.

My husband is not very handy when it comes to household things unfortunately.

Plus paying mortgage insurance of approx $400 a month is not my favorite thing.Here is my options:1) buy multifamily (if I find a good deal), spend all my cash and pay $200-$300 less than my current loan and be a landlord2) Buy turnkey property out of state and get $300-$400 monthly cashflow3) Implement BRRR strategy and buy rental properties out of state.

There is no electrical or plumbing so no permit is needed.I don't want to spend money on something that won't really yield a good benefit.

Of course I have no complaint about my assessed value being low because that's less I'm spending on property taxes! 

why waste your time and effort on this... spend that finding a better property to wholesale.

They should have to pay you the value of your NECESSARY PRESERVATION IMPROVEMENTS, meaning if you do something like some necessary improvements like spend 1K on painting but it adds 5K of value to the home, they have to pay the 5K.

Doesn't make much sense to spend $15k, if the max rent in your area is only $50 more per month.

We currently don't take the home office deduction because our space at home doesn't meet the requirements, we are spending money OOP on storage, and we just would like to have something that we think we can sell easily in the future without too many issues.