Private Lender Or Partnership - what would you do?

[Tara Kinney]

So I'm blessed to work in a profession where I am in constant contact with higher earning people. I recently had a discussion with a collegue that is unhappy with his return in the markets (shocker...) and he knows that I have started investing my money into buy and hold real estate. He approached me and said he would be interested in investing money with me and be happy with an 8% guaranteed return. Now I personally won't purchase a property unless it provides me with a minimum of 12% COC return so this could potentially have a scenerio here where I could capitalize on a project without any of my own money out of pocket here and receive basically a free 4% (or higher) return without any of my own money down. Or...I could put my own money into some higher dollar projects as well. My goal this year is to purchase atleast 2 4-plexes or higher in 2019.

My question is, if you were given this option....how would you choose to structure a deal?  Partnership or private lender?  What is your reason?  How long would you structure a deal for?  I've personally not done a partnership type situation though I have done a private lender.  Just looking for some ideas/strategies that could benefit us both. 

And GO... :)