Oh, and let's not forget about the ongoing "continuing education" credits you need to amass before renewing your license (assuming you become a "Realtor").If your primary motivation for getting a license is to save money selling your own home, it is totally unnecessary, but you should observe the necessary steps required and market rules for selling, whether via an agent, or yourself. 

A reserve is unnecessary, but I still keep around $15,000 - $20,000 in my account.The point is, you should sit down and assess your personal finances to determine what the worst-case scenario may look like, how much you would need to cover it without impacting your life, and whether you will need to build a reserve. 

This creates a lack of control, more variables & an unnecessary middleman.

It’s unnecessary.

@Bruce CrawfordWord of caution, possibly unnecessary as you're aware of it already.

Spent an additional $12k that was unnecessary after choosing the wrong floor guy.

There are some guys that do 5-10 properties per LLC but it would be an unnecessary expense for a LLC for each rental.

However, I'm hesitant as I don't want to create potential unnecessary friction that may lead to headaches.

Unless you're going 1 property / LLC (which I agree is unnecessary), you already need a way of sorting out the various properties within the same set of books to understand how they're individually doing. 

Probably very little, because Property Managers are NOT debt collection agencies, and they could subject themselves (and you) to a lot of unnecessary liability by acting as one in a scenario like this.