You own a company and you have the right to hire whoever you wish to perform services for you (including your other company). 

Mentorship/Training can be extremely  helpful when you are just getting started.  

Appraisers hired by bank are trained to be ultra conservative to protect the banks interest.

From that I determined that debt to income ratio of 2.61 that is my every dollar of expense I had 2.61 dollars coming in to service that expense.

And thank you for your service....Sounds like you have a solid plan for pursuing your REI career - I agree with Dmitriy that BP has great resources available to you.

@Joanna Golden Deductibility of expenses revolves around the "in-service" date, which is tax talk for when the property is in a livable condition and advertised for rent.Once the property is placed in service, operating expenses can be deducted in full, even if there isn’t any rental income just yet.

For the time being I plan on doing all the listing/advertising, data collection/analytics (excel), and payment collection myself (paypal/venmo) until I have enough properties that using a service like Cozy or Avail becomes cost and time effective.

At the very least, you can consult with them and ask about their services and what the state requires to get an idea of what you would need to do without hiring them.  

It would take a 4.5% ROI just to cover your admin costs and break even.You could look at simply opening a self-directed IRA with a low fee custodian like IRA Services Trust Co in the Bay Area or Kingdom Trust Co in KY. 

You’d be setting a bad example and training them incorrectly if you bought them gifts or reduced the rent .