If I were in your shoes, I would dig deep into the numbers and try to understand how the asset can reasonably perform in your market.

If you were in their shoes, you would be trusting the past landlord's reference and wouldn't want to end up with a bad tenant. 

if you guys in my shoes what do you choose and why!!??

In your shoes, post notice on the door and take a photo with your phone (timestamp proof) and also leave a message on their voicemail, indicating your intent to enter to do roof work at XX time on XX day.

You are, in essence, trying to develop your own market assessment by utilizing shoe leather, door knocking, and some technology. 

I explained at that time that i understood if they needed to go that route, but I explained that I couldn't maintain the rent that far below market.Fast forward to now and as more time goes on, they are growing on me as neighbors and so not only would i not want the wrath of the neighborhood if they are forced to move, i also would like to keep tenants that i know are great neighbors while i reside there.So all that being said, if you were in my shoes would you take an income hit and not increase the rent or only increase it by $75 or so in favor of maintaining a quality life with good neighbors?

You seem unable to even begin to put yourself in the shoes of the landlord here, to understand what it's like to have someone play games with you like this.

With that said, here are a couple of the questions and considerations I would have if I were in your shoes.

I wont count the printing costs as its all going through my business' printer and I can pretend it didn't happen :P I am curious, if you were in my shoes and in this market, what would your strategy be to get into a property that I could house hack and make worth while?

A couple of them mentioned a title that sounded like "shoe" something.