Selling my Wholesale Business...need advice

[Chris Speights]

I have been wholesaling for around 3 years, now. I have pretty much always worked with a partner. I work a full time job in Oil & Gas, but was doing wholesaling on the side. This partner of mine does wholesaling full time, among other real estate investment ventures. He is very good at what he does. About a year ago, I received a promotion at my job and it really limited what time I could spend with the real estate.

After this promotion, we adjusted our split as partners because he was doing the majority of the work. In fact, my only real responsibility was lead generation. This also became too overwhelming for me. Which brings me to my current problem.

This partner and I had talked about just leasing my business to him and giving him total control for a small split of every deal each month. I was okay to try this, but he has several marketing people working with him now and they decided that my sites have value, but need work because they are under performing. Because of this, he will have to spend quite a bit of money getting it up to par. So, he says because he has to do this, it makes more sense for him to acquire my business outright.

He is basically asking me for a "number", what I would consider selling it for. My business doesn't consist of a lot, but the value to him is that I have a few years of adword history on my sites, which apparently adds value when you advertise on Google. So, in short, he's really just after my site. But, because I could keep the site and basically do the same things he's going to do with it and make it more profitable, it adds value.

So, the question is, how do I decide how much to sell this "business" for? I am guessing standard rules of business valuation don't really apply here. Also, like I said, we're friends, so I don't want to offend him or anything. Just looking for a little guidance.

Thank you all so much

Chris