Legal Vehicles for Investor Partnerships

[Michael Liddicoat]

Hello fellow BP members!  Please point me in the right direction to help the investors I work with.

Washington state is in a housing boom.  I've got investors looking for multi-family from all over the state looking at Central Washington because their local markets are too hot and deals are hard to come by.  The market here is not much better for existing multi-family.  However, we have land that can be developed and our vacancy rate is between 1 and 2 percent in this county.  Property management companies haven't been able to find a ceiling on rental rates.  Existing single family portfolios are being sold to residential buyers and forcing tenants into a shrinking pool for rental housing.  Several projects have been completed within the last two years for multi-family units but this is still no where near close to covering the demand.  No single investor I work with has the capital to fund a project to develop new multi-family, but several are open to the idea of partnerships.  

Here's the big question:  What legal vehicles exist so that these investors can partner together on a new development while those that want to hold onto and manage the properties can seperate easily from those that want a return on the development?  Maybe this isn't even the right question.  Please let me know if there is a better way to think of this problem if I'm not on the right track.