50/50 Partnership legal costs and depreciation benefits?

[Greg Baker]

Hi everyone, few questions, I'm in New York if it matters. I'm in the process of researching to purchase my first buy and long term hold. I'm considering partnering with someone 50/50 to make the first purchase less impactful on my family's finances and also in the event that we learn some hard lessons it will not be as financially painful. The properties I'm considering would be in the $60,000 range, conventional 25% down, with property management. I'm really trying to determine if partnering to "save" $8,000-$10,000 is really worth it with the additional costs I'm going to ask about below: 1. Any estimated cost to have an attorney draft up the legal contract between my partner and I covering everything including all the "what ifs?" 2. I was not planning to form a LLC, would this be more of a requirement with a partnership? If so, estimated cost to set up the LLC and annual cost? 3. How do the tax benefits of depreciation work when there are two partners who both put in 50/50 and are both listed on the mortgage? #3 is really important to me because I'm paying my six figure school loans back with income based repayment (IBR) and will utilize public service loan forgiveness in about 8 years. I'm hoping the depreciation will help offset annual raises at work and keep my monthly income based loan payments from spiking. Thanks, Greg