Need Advice on a Condo Development Joint Venture Deal

Real Estate Investing Retail
1

My name is Ben Edwards and I was recently offered an opportunity by a foreign investor to do a joint venture deal.

Here is what the anatomy of the deal looks like. The foreign investor owns two parcels of prime real estate around the Washington DC metropolitan area and wants to put up mid-rise condos with retail space in the first floors. He’ll be putting up all the funding on both deals and my job will be to oversee the projects from A to Z and assemble the proper team to do so. All the plans have been approved for the projects by the local municipality. The first site will have 28 units and the second one will have approximately 42 units.

In our preliminary discussions, we have agreed that I should have a monthly salary for the duration of the projects and that I should get a piece of the action in the backend. I have also convinced the investor that I should manage the retail space that will be in the first floor.

The investor has asked me to submit a proposal to him on the terms and I was hoping to get some advice from seasoned investors on how to structure the JV. Here are the areas that I have concern in:

  1. Should I become an employee of his company or work as a consultant?
  2. As the person who will be overseeing the entire project, what should my level of decision making be (I’m concerned that the investor might bring in other folks in the project who may not share my vision)? I want to put together the team for the projects and not have to deal with any outsiders.
  3. If there are any cost overruns due to unforeseen circumstances, who should take responsibility for them?
  4. What is a reasonable monthly salary?
  5. What is a reasonable equitable share to request in the backend? Should it be based on gross sales or net profits?
  6. What is a reasonable percentage to request for managing the retail space and what should the duration be?
  7. Should I just go for equity only (no salary) and request part of the payments during the pre-selling period and the rest upon completion?
  8. What are some of the things that I should look out for in such JV deals?

Any suggestions/advice will be greatly appreciated and feel free to email me at benedwards111@gmail.com

Thanks
Ben Edwards