Aloha @Nicholas PriceIt can be tough to invest on Oahu, since it's very competitive and we are in a seller's market, but there are still some gems to be had if you have the patience. 

Perhaps I could take out a fraction of a hard money loan to work with my HELOC that would cover the majority of the project.

I know there is a lot of competition out there. 

You now have competition because I'm considering buying it for myself. 

Given the competition in the Texas markets, it should take you about 35-minutes to find a "real" cash buyer. 

You can hire a local appraiser and pay him/her for their professional services, or even a veteran broker in that immediate marketplace...also it is not a bad idea to preview homes for sale (the competition) and kick around open houses, that way when they sell you will have a decent perspective on value since you have already been inside the property, forget Zillow...just my opinion !

If the current manager won (results wise), he keeps his job and above market compensation after bonuses.If the new manager won, he replaced the current one.He found this to be a highly effective way of keeping his pay per click managers highly motivated  to continue optimizing the campaigns to the best of their abilities.This is more easily done in the online world, but I wonder if such a competitive incentivization scheme would work between property managers as well.

I don't think you can assume that there is something going on with the banking industry - even with the numbers you gave (less than 20) that is still a tiny fraction compared with the number of people who work in the banking industry. 

This will show you who is motivated +"seeing the competition" will get their butts moving faster.If you make custom one on one appointments they will run you ragged.

If they are significantly overpriced they will sit on the market much longer, but if your product looks better than most of your competition, you can sell at or a bit above the market from my experience very quickly.