I live near Chicago, so we get all 4 seasons and a ton of moisture. 

So it's pretty risky to put loans out solely on relationship with no skin in the game.

They also use conservative leverage, and put huge skin in the game in every deal (10% or more).

There was moisture buildup in one wall so severe that the wall was soft. 

A private lender would be very pleased with that degree of "skin" in the game.  

Even the new drug that they invented like Semaglutide, is working also towards lowering blood sugar.All these from "fasting" to "semaglutide", is just methodology, to lower the blood sugar as main objective.If one is curious on the real impact of it you could  use the device that attach to your skin, to monitor your blood sugar in real time. 

It sounds like if you just structured it giving him commissions it would not really work out considering he clearly wants more involvement/skin in the game on the project.Maybe just split it LLC 50/50 and the commission savings is a preferred return over his split on the exit?

I am finally ready to get out of analysis paralysis and get some skin in the game!

I had a remediation contractor come out, and he told me the levels on the report is what he'd expect from a basement in Portland, and any amount of washing / bleaching wouldn't reduce the levels much long term as more moisture would enter the space up from the slab because concrete will always give off some moisture, and he couldn't really recommend much remediation. 

If you don't control the moisture level or stop the source it's going to come back.