Lastly, I second @Chad Urbshott  there is a cap on the expected capital to be invested from JV partner. 

Is your seller basing his price only off of a cap rate for the building?

I have a lender that will do $1M appraised value.Second appraisal should be based on income at a cap rate.

I know in our area even though its 3 to 5% cap rates its still positive cash flow not negative.. price points wont go up above rental income. at this point the market for rent has peaked and unless someone is going to owner occ  the values are pretty steady for small multi family and multi family.SFR's you cant look at in a cap rate scenario.. there is many times intrinsic owner occ values attached to those..

Might want to see if there is a cap to the increases.

I've also seen people use a clause stating something like "will pay "x%" above max offer with a cap of "x" amount" which can give you a better shot if you were competing strictly on price but don't want to have to go above and beyond your range.

Details in MLSUnits: 6Taxes: $5874 (annual)Gross Income: $48,600 ($675 per month)Net Operating Income $38,838Total Expenses: $9762Vacancy Rate: 5%Asking Price: $449KOwner pays Trash & Water______________________________________________________________Based on the expenses I am assuming that the property management is completed by the owner and that they are including ~$4K a year in insurance.I ran the numbers in my own Deal Analyzer and I added:5% of Effective Gross Income as Maintenance Expense 10% of Effective Gross Income as Property Management ExpenseBumped the vacancy rate from 5% to 10%Insurance: $3000 (annual $500 per door)Water: $3240 ($45 per door - typical in city)Trash: $1,800 ($25 per door - complete guess)$12K for improvements ($2k per door)20 year note @ 5% with 20% down (assuming full asking price)2% Closing costs______________________________________________________________My numbers show a Cap Rate of 5.7%, cash on cash return of -5.12% and -$1,668 of annual cash flow. 

duplex 4 plex and multi  works because they are sold at a cap rate.If your building and holding the ONLY license you need is a GC... its when you sell to the public that you need the developers license.. just fyi.. of course most flippers don't know this and do it illegally.

An aggressive split sounds great in beginning, but if you are a performer then a cap is almost a necessity to maximize your share. 

Did some rehab on an old kitchen in a Cape we bought.Cabinets $3900, Granite $1759, porcelein Tile .93 cents/sq ft.