In addition to the creation and renewal costs, lending become more difficult and expensive, you would probably need a lawyer to act in court to represent your entity, you need to operate the LLC properly to keep its protection veil (documentation of meeting, separation of accounting, proper way of signing documents on behalf of the LLC, etc...).At the end of the day, there is no one right answer for everyone, but only one that make sense to you.

Plan to not renew lease once it expires and conduct ~8k in renovations to modernize and re-list for $1295/mo.

For lease renewals, we start this process 60-90 days before the end of the lease term.

Lease fees and renewals are way better too.

I was feeling so down earlier this week and now I feel a renewed fight in me to get out there and make some offers. 

It's much more likely that the bank won't renew the loan at a balloon period, as most commercial loans have a balloon type structure.

As a landlord, can I do new lease agreements or renewals without an agent?

I do mostly everything for tracking property financials, tenant renewals, vacancy, budgeting, and document management. 

When their lease is up, do not renew it.

From that point on there is no more 'registration' to renew and records are instead kept through the county property appraiser instead of the DMV.