Structuring Private Money Deals

[Thomas Smith]

I am looking for some advice and hopefully a mentor with putting together private money on multifamily unit deals.  I currently have a 33-unit portfolio of my own but this has all been done by using my own capital and/or owner financing opportunities.  In order for me to scale, private investors will be a necessity.  I currently have several deals coming in and a list of friends who are ready to start investing with me on the capital side.  Unfortunately, I do not have any experience with the legalities of structuring a deal with private money, nor do I have the experience to understand how to structure a deal with my investors to make it desirable for them as well as myself.  Obviously there are many ways of doing this and at the end of the day as long as everyone is happy then it works, but I want to make sure I am doing things legally as well as protecting myself against a bad deal with the investors involved.