Family Partnership Question

[Samuel Glantz]

Hey everyone.  I am slowly but surely starting my journey into long term buy and hold rentals for cash flow.  I am going to partner on this with my father.  We have both agreed to terms verbally and have full faith and trust in each other.  Most of the money will be put up by him as time goes on but in the beginning it should be close to a 50/50 thing.  Our intention is to purchase 2-4 family homes in cash, renovate and refinance them.  Possible delayed financing with the hud loophole I learned in a bp podcast. However, our first purchase will be more of a turnkey or a prop needing little renovations, maybe some paint and appliances to get our feet wet.  We want to get a feel for out of state investing before going all in. 

I would like to know how we should be going about this partnership.  Getting my father to an attorney to sign partnership agreements seems like it would be more trouble than it is worth.  My primary concern would be obtaining loans from a bank.  Our Credit scores, income and debt to income ratios are solid.  I am just not certain how banks will take to loaning money to us if say only my name is on the loan but the money comes from him.  If we are able to put 10 in my name and then 10 in his, that allows us to obtain 20 properties before we need to look into portfolio loans.  Well 18 if you take out our primary residences. 

So do we need to get a partnership agreement drawn up or is it not needed? Do we need to form an LLC? I know both of us would prefer to do neither but we are both willing to do what is needed to move this venture forward. If we need to do this, would we need an attorney in the state we are investing in or our home state? We both live in AZ. Any info and or advice is much appreciated.