Third, if I found out that you were trying to charge me more rent than another tenant, I'd sue you.

Conventional methods haven't worked and so I brought in a professional. 

My question is should I go with a conventional loan up front using my cash and little bit of HELOC for the downpayment, then renovate, and refinance OR should I use a hard money loan and/or some of the HELOC to do the same thing, renovate, and refinance?

If you could refinance into a conventional mortgage, then another FHA loan shouldn't be a problem.

They will only charge you for executing the transaction.

Looking for some options I could present to the owner outside of getting conventional financing.

It seems to me that the tenant should reimburse the landlord for the $150 fee that the court charges (in Maui, at least) to file the eviction suit and probably any additional court costs and lawyers fees as well.. but I haven't been able to confirm this.

Charge them market rate.

When I posted the house to rent it out, they were the first to want to get on and I was going to charge them $1700/ month but I gave them the option that if they signed for two years I would leave the rent at $1650/month.

He was charging $1,495 for each 2 bed/ 1 bath units.