private money or partner?

[Chad J Muse]

New to REI ( about a year). Still working day jobs, my wife and I bought 4 sfh last year. 3 buy and hold, one flip. Flip almost ready for market, 2 of 3 fully renovated and rented(duplex and sfh renovated, one turn key). We also have our resident house and our previous residence which is now rented. We also manage 6 other rentals. During my learning curve, we have burned up our cash. even though we have built up our equity and cash flow nicely with rentals. We want to scale up. I was working on an owner finance of 10 unit, but he is not coming around yet. So, in the meantime, I am building a relationship with our hard money lender we are using for the flip. I am building a portfolio to present to private money individuals i know to see if they would invest with us, just to cover down payments. Is this the right way to go? I am also thinking about a partner. How do I go about finding a partner at this stage of the game?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Chad.