Roles of the different required team members in a syndication

[Ryan Franklin]

In putting together your syndication team, what are the roles you feel are the most important in creating a highly successful syndicate and what are their individual responsibilities? Here are a few team members I'm expecting to be important. What is the purpose of each and what roles am I missing (other than investors and a mentor)?

SEC Lawyer:

Local Commercial Real Estate lawyer:

Commercial RE Broker:

Property Manager/Mgmt Company:

CPA:

[Amy Wan]

A few things to add: Marketing is important (especially if you're using crowdfunding); otherwise, you or your business partners need to know and have build up a good network of accredited investors. After that, your management team matters the most--making sure you work with an experienced syndicator is highly recommended (I see a lot of first time syndicators fail the first time if they have no help).

I actually would recommend different securities (SEC) and real estate transactional counsel. I like working with specialists, not generalists. A security lawyer's job is to keep up to date on all the different securities regulations, how to use them, how to structure deals, compliance, etc. Real estate attorneys specialize in helping you document and close a deal. But I find its helpful to work with someone who spends their entire 9-5 on one aspect and knows it inside out, rather than a generalist who knows a bit about everything, but only had breadth instead of depth. Also, with generalists, if they dont know something, you're paying them to learn it; with specialists, they expected to already know it.