Ala Wai house turned out to be precisely as advertised!
My wife and I stayed here for nearly 80 days and have no complaints. I think if we were there for much longer we would start to get a bit tired of the size of having a studio apartment though. I would not recommend a family with a child stay here unless the child is more on the calm side.
I read many reviews before we chose to rent here, and it is accurate that parking is pretty hard to find along the side roads, I ended up getting a monthly parking pass at the Hale Koa parking garage, which is a 26 minute walk from Ala Wai House. There are closer parking garages, but Hale Hoa offered the best price. There is a lot of street noise, but that is advertised. Vagrants do wander by too, but never acknowledged me let alone caused trouble.
The hosts are very kind and put effort into making your stay comfortable. If we come back to Honolulu, I would look to stay here first!