They want you to have skin in the game, that's the whole point of the down payment.

Looking forward to getting skin in the game and eventually transitioning from my full time job as a deputy sheriff to living on my investment income.

Properties are expensive here and the HML want me to have 20% skin in the game.

You may be able to work out some other ways to do this deal with less money, but banks aren't real keen on investment loans without skin in the game. 

They want to know you have both you own money at risk (Skin in the game) and have the ability to save money in the first place. 

I haven't used a hard money lender yet , but I do have a contact who is a HML and when I called about a particular deal - he wanted me to have at least 30 - 40%  of the purchase price - or to be connected with a partner who has that much - point is - it wasn't exactly a situation where I was going to get away with " no money down" or something - they wanted to see "skin in the game"  too  - others may have had different experiences or an HML with different parameters of course - but in my limited experience with them,  they are going to want you to have SOME of the money - he was willing to toss out some ideas on how we could structure the deal and make it happen though and was very helpful.

This third was his equity before the market had taken it away.Technically speaking, there is no skin in the game on the borrower's part.

If I were in your shoes, my personal comfort level would be to have them be hard money lenders on your deals, or if they are adamant about owning their own properties I would help them find and purchase deals with their own money that can then be passed off to a property management company. you would be sort of an advisor with no actual skin in the game, and can give them advice about running it when issues arise.I would not want to be actually controlling the money or managing the properties, as 10% of rents would not be enough incentive to mix business with family for me

It's nice to hear a glowing contractor referral.

A lender would also want to see you with skin in the game so you might need to pony up 50k.