A good REALTOR will know the market far better than you, understands the contract, has strong negotiating skills, can be an objective set of eyes on the property, and more.

@Sam Mahmood start by clearly defining and quantifying your objectives.

Also depends on your long term objective for that property or the overall portfolio.

Having unbiased counsel and advice that's aligned with your investment goals, thereby separating any one specific market from your investment objectives. 

Maybe his weirdness gave rise to your input on points 1 and 2 - there's nothing objectively wrong with "hanging out in the common area" or "having guests over."

It will depend on your goals, objectives and business model.  

Between a death in the lender’s family and a vacation this caused another few weeks of delay as a new title search had to be completed on my buyer’s other house being used as collateral.Now we’re at approx Sept 1; All along the way this information was communicated to the sellers as we moved through this entire process and they never once objected or took issue with the unforeseen delays.

I think I could handle living next to tenants for a year or two if this option is objectively better.

I would speak to your attorney and review the the loan to make sure there are no due-on-sale clauses before transferring ownership.I had this reply from the lender:I left a voicemail explaining that <lender> doesn’t object to you moving the home into a LLC, but we aren’t actually involved in that process.

Let's assume asset protection is not an objective here.