My question is when the three years are up is there a way for me to “refinance the house into my name based of off the equity instead of having to qualify based on my income and pay the owner off”.

Pay them back.

Chances you can get a company to do title, pay cash and come to an agreement within a week is going to be very challenging.

I got a quote for $17k to $19k for a full updated, fully occupied building.I thought this seemed double what I should be paying. 

It did come with a pay cut but worth it since I wasn't crazy busy or dead tired during or after work.

Assuming you find somebody who has the risk appetite, you’d need to pay them a huge return to compensate for the risk.

Zillow.com is 80% of the market, you can list with byowner.com, Their MLS package will get your listing syndicated to all the other sites, redfin, trulia, apartments.com, homes.com, realtor.com. 

Are there free expired listings sites.

At that point you would just pay the tax as you normally would. 

All of the info on these sites originates from the MLS systems that NAR controls.