Even if you self manage at some point you might not want to and if you didn't allocate for that cost on purchase you will have diminished returns.Most investors can't handle by themselves doing everything anything over a 20 unit property.

I always put a rehab into a 1st lien now as we typically have to foreclose, so you have to allocate for that also.

Have you accurately allocated for all the costs?

If you paid $250,000 on an SC property that rented for $1700/mo:Annual Income                                      $20,500Taxes                                                         3,600 (would be about $1,200 with owner occupied)Insurance                                                      800Maintenance allocation                              2,000Vacancy allocation                                     2,050Net operating Income                               12,050CAP Rate                                                          4.8%On most rentals in the Charlotte area I look at a minimum of an 8-9% CAP rate.

You could start by looking at nearby comparable properties to see if they allocate any of these costs to the tenant via RUBS or something else. 

Underestimating the Importance of Allocating the Time and Money necessary to Fix the Problem.These are the most common reasons, but certainly there are others.

In your book, it will look like this (backend of the software)Debit amex-suspense expenseCredit APWhen time to pay, you cut a check (backend of the software) it will look like thisDebit APCredit Cash Time to allocate your transaction in 1 journal entry:Entity  Account               Debit     Credit   DescriptionA         landscape exp     1,000                monthly service for Aug 2016A         loan&exchange                 1,000    to reimburse back to PersonalB         CAPEX                  2,500                 Capital Expense for _____B         loan&exchange                  2,500   to reimburse back to Personaland so on..You can have HUNDREDS of line items in this 1 journal entry, but it's just 1 entry, NOT 4.If you prefer, you can do gather up all the transaction for 1 property and do a journal entry to make it cleaner.If what you are doing works for you, all the power to you.

If you take a loan against your 401k and consider it as your "bond" portion of allocations- I think this is the best way to frame it.  

If they are doing hourly or salaried work that is not "the practice of real estate", then you're fine.For anything that falls within "the practice of real estate" in your state, you most likely would have to pay their broker/brokerage - so they would need to have a sit down with their broker about how the fees would be allocated between the broker and the agent on the receiving end.In California, the practice of real estate is defined as:"a person who, for a compensation or in expectation of a compensation, regardless of the form or time of payment, does or negotiates to do one or more of the following acts for another or others:  (a) Sells or offers to sell, buys or offers to buy, solicits prospective sellers or puchasers of, solicits or obtains listings of, or negotiates the purchase, sale or exchange of real property or a business opportunity.

I'm fairly young, 30, so my investment allocation was 85/15 stocks to bonds.