Do you invest solo and with partners? I have some questions.

[James Masotti]

Hey there BP - Hoping to get some advice and insight from your collective wisdom. I've acquired a few properties now using a private lender. We were discussing that in the next couple of years that we'd like to look at purchasing larger commercial properties and possibly bring on some more investors.  However to accomplish this my private lender is interested in becoming an equity partner moving forward. I'm super supportive of this for at least the near term as I do agree it will make it easier for both of us to approach additional investors on larger commercial deals. However I like the liquidity of single family homes and would hope to still be able to acquire them in my own name down the road either with my own funds as I build my capital base, or with other private lenders. 

So I guess my questions is for those of you who sometimes invest on your own and sometimes with partners under an LLC, or have multiple LLCs where you invest with multiple people...how do you structure this to make it clear when a deal should be done under the partnership and when a deal can be done outside of the partnership? I know I need to speak to an attorney eventually on how to put all this in the operating agreement, but figured I'd get some advise and perspective first so that I can ask the right questions of both my private lender and the attorney before putting everything on paper and making it official.

Thanks!