First Time Partnering on a Deal

[Mario Ciccarelli]

I have one investment property right now, a townhouse I'm house hacking by renting out the rooms, but I am looking to partner on my next deal. My friend is interested in REI, has a boatload of investable savings, but has very little knowledge and experience in real estate. I on the other hand have spent the past 4 years reading, listening to podcasts, and now actually have a deal. I've been studying my market and the two of us would like to start acquiring properties together, him as the money and me as the muscle.

My question is, what is the best way to structure this? Do we create an LLC for each property? A parent LLC and then a new one inside for each property? Should we create this LLC now or after we find a deal? We're actively looking for them but I don't want to get held up in legal work if we find one and then don't have the entity set up. I also know I need to find a lender who will loan to LLCs as we are disqualifying ourselves from traditional mortgages this route.