How about coming THIS CLOSE to a $12k payday for 3 days of work and having it fall through?

While it's significant that I've never put together a JV deal, I've thought about how I'd structure one, and in my opinion you're undervaluing both the effort and expense required to acquire a good deal, and you're undervaluing the work required to bring a project to payday.  

@Rusty Whitney, be aware that NEXT time you wish to use the same idea of buying with low deposit for the purpose of cashing out equity later, then as well as the equity-adding-rehab already mentioned, you should be aiming for additional INSTANT equity - by buying absolute bargains!

If you need that money, in a heloc it is - or should be instantly available.

Plus you’ll respond to everything instant and really control the situation.

I am....I'm learning just how critical your team is, and how a great one will instantly make an impression.

Friday is payday, so we pay new contractors (and some of our standing crew) every Friday.

Well, I'm in an interesting position for this post,  as I just sold a couple of properties and ended up with a bit over your fictitious "payday".  

I like getting instant notifications from BP on my iphone since I am trying to buy single family homes, duplexes, and other small multifamily properties here for buy and hold or fix and flips.

Since I became a member here I was instantly blown away by the giving, caring and sharing nature of this forum.