You get to exercise creativity, financial analysis and negotiation/sales skills all on the same project.

That mental exercise would have been some years ago, though, and short-lived.I don’t know what your numbers look like, but am imagining this scenario: today your $10,000/mo gross rental income commercial property may cost $3,000/mo in loan interest and another $3,000/mo in property tax, insurance, utilities, and beauty upkeep.

Exercising a little patience and taking a year to better establish that foundation before launching into the shell of my R/E portfolio seems appropriate.

I just started managing over 40 properties, flips and doing a closing coordinator role on real estate buy/sell.

You also get to take advantage of long term appreciation, which you can play a direct role in accelerating by focusing on one community.

As far as anyone can tell, they exercised no such right. 

As part of #1, make sure everyone is very clear on their roles, money they are putting in, equity earned, etc.

You put NO money in (it's much easier if the roles are clearly defined).If this is to be a flip property, she gets her money back first, then the profits are split based on the agreed % returns for each partner.Let me add this, she will want more since she put up all the money. 

@Katie LeaThere is not much risk for you since you would typically not have to exercise the option to purchase if you decided not to move forward.

The best team-members for a savvy real estate agent usually come through networking and referrals -- when someone connects me with a person because they thought "oh, you would be perfect for this role Will was telling me about last week" then there is a much higher chance good things are coming, compared with a craigslist hire.I'd recommend getting really deep and nerdy here on BP and doing as much networking as possible in the DFW area and seeing if you can add tremendous value to any of the local real estate agents or brokers.