Partnering with existing multi-family owners for value-add deals?

[Peter Lee]

Curious as to whether anyone has approached an owner of an underperforming apartment complex and in-lieu of trying to buy the property, one offers to put up the money to do the necessary improvements and the project management work.  Maybe there are owners out there that are either undercapitalized or too lazy to do the improvements to bring a project up to market rate.

The idea would be that the existing owner would see an improvement in his cash flow and the developer coming in with the capital to do the improvements would see a return on their money and possibly in a manner more efficient than if they were to buy the property outright because of increased leverage.  The developer would also get some equity in project in event of exit.

Thoughts?