Real Estate agent as a partner

[Brenton Tigner Jr]

Greetings, 

  My curiosity, as an investor, is it considered advantageous to partner with a licensed agent? Are there any particular cons? Are there certain deals where this idea is more advantageous than others?

Thanks,

Newbie Investor

[Max Gradowitz]

There is no benefit in of itself.  If the agent is a particularly good business partner, you should partner with them because they are a good business partner, NOT because they are licensed.  You could use them as your agent, but I don't see a benefit to that.  I'd find a particularly investor-friendly agent to use as my actual property-hunting agent.  Chances are your potential partner is not (investor-friendly agents are a dime a dozen unfortunately, although most of them will not admit that).

I have a handful of clients that are partnered with licensed agents as business partners in a 50/50 partnership agreement, but none of them use their business partners as their active agent to represent them in the deal.  The agent should not have a financial interest in the transaction, in my opinion.  You don't want one partner making those decisions, you want an independent professional making those decisions and CONFIRMING it's ok with BOTH partners.