If you are not up front and keep having a HML do the work to be ready to lend only to tell them no thanks, I had someone else in front of you...

Who else is located near this area?

Anything else I need to do and/or set up and look out for? 

If I evict him, I'll have to go in now with about 60-70% of whats really needed (as no one else would EVER rent the place in it's current condition) but I suppose I could get it "rent ready" with the funds I have now in a couple months. 

Has anybody else dealt with a similar situation?

If you're about leveraging someone else's cash - I'd house hack FHA 3.5% down a 2-4 unit - and then move into another primary (or just buy 20% down - up to you) and flip that into a rental.

Everywhere else this would be called a triplexDuplex down means the entrance is on the first floor and additional living space is on the floor below. 

Any where else a fund is a better option in my opinion since SFHs generally have very poor cash on cash returnes (cash flow).

How else can this be achieved?

The property is your investment there is no way you should be allowing someone else to make a profit off of your efforts without getting a cut.