In this area they are involved with the vast majority of available property, should I treat them as a friend and asset or try to work around them (which makes me feels shady just writing it)Thank you for any feedback! 

Are you treating the money from the investor as a loan, or as a contribution of capital?  

But if you're really treating it as a range, I would calculate as the lower number.  

It's a loft condo, 780 sq. feet, and totally open space with 14 foot ceilings and a really nice feel to it (it's in a 2006 re-modeled old Boston chocolate factory).

It is key to treat every tenant exactly the same as that will keep you out of hot water, increasing some and not others with no real reason can be an issue.

I explain that good tenants are treated like gold and bad tenants regret the day they ever meet me.

Keep that excitement going as you learn to treat flipping homes as a business. 

Other than the typical fruit basket, chocolates or wine.

They have treated me well and were very good with pricing.

One of the things people like about single-family rentals is that statistically, people stay longer, and subjectively, they tend to treat it more like a home than people in multi-fmaily houses do.