I personally made the mistake of working with friends who provided contracting services for me and continually dismissed and ultimately gave them enough leash to hang myself on.

It ultimately comes down to your personal preferences.

It is difficult to say who will pay them but it will ultimately be whoever would like to maintain a continuing interest in the property.

Ultimately you'll want to make sure you have a good financial foundation and once that is set in place, learn your market, learn what to expect, stick with what you know or have the ability to learn and then you'll have a MUCH clearer picture of what to use those extra funds for.

I primarily focus on running the numbers as an LTR because, short of selling, that's my ultimate exit strategy.

A large part of this is because the Landlady is ultimately the boss of what the tenant can or cannot due at the property and the arbiter of what they pay to be there.

Ultimately, the answer is vague as it depends on property analysis in conjuction with investment strategy and associated risks. 

This will ultimately be determined by you as the loan guarantor and the underlying real estate collateral. 

The ultimate goal is to maximize profit so we both run research of the area and work as a team to do whatever possible in the pre-acquisition stage to set ourselves up for success.   

It was pretty hard to find properties where the numbers and landlord laws made sense which is what ultimately led me to investing in Columbus, OH.