My Background Continued ..2

In 2015 I invested in my first real syndication.  There were 4 investors and 5 members total (including a general partner.)

On paper it was a great investment.   I will not give the full background but only a high level overview.    It does not qualify for the "my biggest mistake and what I learned thread," but It is an amazing story and the end of that story is close.  

When we purchased the property, it had a proforma of about 40,000k per month and was a 2M investment; 97 units total.  In reality, the occupancy was only 80% and brought in about 32k/month.   Still this would easily pass the 1% rule.  

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The good news only lasted for about one quarterly report.   The project was over run with bad decisions and lack of action and care by the general partner.   Right off the bat, the GP decided to take on the payment of ALL the properties utility bills.  This was because he wanted to put the utilities in the partnership's name and apply for a solar panel grant.  (only the named payee of the utilities could make the application) The only problem was that he did not read the fine print and what he signed essentially gave all of the free grant money to the solar panel company for installing the system.

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The really bad news was that the General Partner and his wife started a divorce right around this time.   I had known the GP for maybe 15 years and he was and still is a great guy.  The problem is that he stopped caring as much as he should have and "other things" took up most of his time and attention.   I tried taking him out to the gym and for coffee to discuss things, but mostly they were all going slowly downhill, Including our investment.