Partner Real Estate Investing

[AJ Satcher]

Hello everyone! 

My fiancé & I have been pooling in our savings together for our own real estate investment for the past 5 months and have a goal to begin sometime after 12 months of saving (so far so good). I have a good friend whom I went to college with and has a good chunk of funds right now. He is now interested in doing a deal with us and I'm a bit hesitant because involving another party I'm sure can get complex. However he does have the funds and he could definitely  help get the ball rolling faster. Any ideas on the best way to go about this?

Quick facts:

- My fiancé & I live in ATL, GA, he lives in Minneapolis, MN area.

- At the end of 12 months, my fiancé & I plan on having between 20-25K. Right now we have about 10K. Friend has 30K right now.

- No previous real estate experience, only knowledge I've researched for the past year

- All in our mid 20s, stable jobs (friend is in med school only) 

[Mike Moe]

Adding a partner to get deals and experience sooner rather than later can be a great way to get some deals under your belt. The biggest thing is to have super clear expectations written out ahead of time to avoid and falling out or resentment during the transaction, make sure you and your partners have the same vision for the investment, and make sure you trust your partners. I've said before that these types of partnerships are a huge commitment (think marriage :)). But having some of these uncomfortable conversations ahead of time make for a much smoother operation and partnership through the life of the deal.

My partnerships are done in LLCs with operating agreements that spell out EVERYTHING. Every operating agreement has things like roles and responsibilities, who can make certain decisions on there own and what decisions need approval from all or part of the rest of the team,  what the holding period looks like, what happens if someone wants out etc...