Co-buying vacation rental property to combine usage/rental

[Tiffany Shan]

I met a pair of friends this week who had an interesting arrangement that worked for them, and I'm curious if anyone else has contemplated this or come across it. 

Friend A was older, wealthier, and wanted a vacation home largely for personal use. 

Friend B was shopping in the same area, and although they wanted to very occasionally use their property, were really excited by potential short-term rental yields. 

They bought a single home together, owned as TIC 60/40, and got the following benefits:

-A was not going to use the home so often as to require 100% of a home

-B&A together have more resources than B alone, so he can get a way nicer home, more amenities, better location, way higher rental revenue

-B has hired cleaner/quasi property manager who keeps the property probably nicer than A actually would on their own 

-B gets to diversify and put the rest of the money he would have allocated to this purchase to a diff home or neighborhood

Obviously the agreement is actually fairly complicated and I assume quite rare (I have a particular interest in group purchases, and I only met them because I went looking), but they seemed really happy with it. It seems like this is a potentially advantageous way to find a capital partner that's only possible because of the kind of unique nature of vacation rentals.

[Andrew Johnson]

@Tiffany Shan All I can think of is Friend A wants to use it for personal use on the July 4th weekend and Friend B says "are you nuts, we'd be giving up ____ in rental income!"  Or here in San Diego, Friend A wants to stay in it during ComicCon (going on now!) or opening week for the Del Mar horse races (going on now!) and Friend B has a heart attack with the lost revenue.  Oh well, I just see the potential for conflict.  I'm sure it can work out well if everyone understands the ground rules or if there's maybe a booked rental revenue "floor" the property has to achieve before Friend A gets unfettered use of the property.  I could only imagine the operating agreement on this one.  Man I'm in a negative mood today, all I can see are the hassles :-)