How Many Partners is Too Many

[Marty Hyland]

I'm preparing for my first flip in Q1 next year. I work in new home sales so I have a finger on the pulse of the market here in Houston. I'll be using agents that I trust to help pick the right property. I'm weighing whether to have multiple colleagues invest with me, or just go right to a HML, purchase price in the $100k area. This being my first flip, I value the experience as well as the financial gain.

I'm comfortable investing up to $50k of my own money and I'm considering up to 3 additional partners to finance everything, if I can't get 1 sole investor (unlikely). I have a carpenter friend who will provide some labor and oversee all of the construction, for a percentage of the net profits. My question for the vets is, do you think it's likely to create problems with too many cooks in the kitchen, i.e. more partners, more potential opinions on the desired outcome? I think I'd have to define up front that project decisions are solely mine and my investors are just that, investors, not partners on the job. The negative of the HML is obviously they're taking more of my profit, but if executed as perfectly as possible, I'm not splitting the pie 3/4 ways. Thoughts?