I ran everything, they looked okay, so we arranged for a move in date.  

Hello BP community. I'm looking at the purchase of a townhouse in my local area. I already ran the numbers which look good, but your input would be appreciated. I'm cheap so I only look for low cost rental purchases. ...

Having a fee arrangement likely isn't enforceable unless you are a broker.  

Just to spell it out because I am not the best communicator... the above arrangement instead of finding my next deal, contacting my lender, waiting on him/her to wire funds, and hopefully making a cash offer before someone else with immediate access to cash.

The plan was that once we sold, he would be paid for the rehab plus 50% of the profits.Turns out he got cold feet in a few months after listing the property and wanted to exit at a substantially lower figure than what we had agreed to, so I bought him out and sold the place a month later.My point is, this type of arrangement can work but make sure of the hurdles and what you will be giving up.How much would a contractor charge for a regular rehab, with weekly draws?

@Ian Ippolito  in my limited knowledge of the industry.. and my personal perspective is that at least as it relates to rehab debt deals which seems to be one of the major focus of the RE portals these are just HML running under the crowdfunding name nothing more nothing less.And as a HML  one who arranges a loan for others as they do.. they get compensated the same way as a HML in points and servicing fee's etc. 

Seems strange and a bit fishy to me ... blind leading the blind at best, fraud at worse ... either way, no go would be my advice on the whole arrangement unless you have some very compelling answers to these questions that I hadn't thought of.

In the spring if you decide you need to offer a lease and he doesn't want if you feel strongly about it  you can terminate the current arrangement.    

Just let me know and we can arrange some time.

Broker arranging the loan charges points for the effort.