Partnership Structure with a Friend

[Kelvin Duen]

My best friend has approached me with a deal, that on paper, is just okay. It's not a homerun deal but it'll cash flow. The deal is in Philadelphia and we are in New York City. Here's the situation:

We are both new to real estate investing. I may be a little more versed than him via books and involvement with family rentals, but for the most part have no direct experience. He has a full-time job/career while I am pursuing real estate investing full time. He found the deal and is in contact with the owner. It was initially approached as a partnership with a 50/50 split on all expenses and profits. I brought up that this structure may not work. Since I am pursuing REI full time I will be doing more than 50% of the work since my schedule will allow it. I tend to be very diligent and involved with everything I'm apart of. He has his full-time job so he is essentially only available in the evenings and some weekends. This never occurred to him so I told him to think about it before we talked about how to structure the split.

We technically don't need each other to make the deal work but there's comfort to know someone is in the trenches with you. It'd probably be more difficult for him on his own but I'm confident he can make it work. We both see REI as a mean to achieve financial independence and create time wealth. I am not going to poach deal from him so it would be a partnership if I'm involved. What is the BP's opinion on a partnership structure like this? Is this kind of thing typical? What kind of split would be more reflective of a scenario like this?