I am doing everything, but finding people is tricky. However, I am slowing assembling a team. I have an engineer who will do verbal inspects. Also, I just picked up an appraiser last night (played Cashflow with a bunch of realtors).
>The rewards of the passive investor aren’t as good as the active participant. Financially you may be able to do well passively but you don’t get the enjoyment of putting it all to together. When you find that perfect partner do you share?
At this point, all I want to see is volume, a check, and cashflow. If somebody else puts part of it together, great. I don’t mind taking a cut against the gross.
Sharing is the essence of a partnership. The give. But you cannot have a partnership without communication and some common ground. I think the relationship is worth more than the money you split. It makes it all worthwhile. I guess finding the “right” people takes time. I met a ton of realtors this past weekend and a couple of them had leads (12 to be exact). It was a mind expanding experience.
I’ve had a belly full of partners lately. I got one deal at a title company that has dragged itself into the second week now. My paperwork got “lost” when I gave it to a partner to deliver to the title company.
At any rate, I managed to get a lunch date with a local business owner who is also a real estate investor and broker. I asked him about the “art” of partnering and he told me, in all seriousness, to forget about the money in the deal. Look at the person. He told me a quick story about how he got into a fist fight with a partner over $42K. He told me that I should set up small agreements (i.e. follow up calls, how do they keep you informed, etc.) and see if they are good at keeping these small agreements. I’d love to hear feedback on this approach.
My problem is I’m really busy. I’m on the verge of a tech start up and I’m preparing for some serious investors. A good portion of my time is spent working with the investment banker and lawyers and managing prototype development.
I still want to keep my REI deal flow, so I try to partner, but I while I’m good at analyzing deals and getting them, I’m lousy at partnering (i.e. one investor I MAY partner with left myself and the seller hanging when he didn’t show up to get a “free” house. I have decided to do this one myself - PACTrust and MAYBE make the investor a limited partner, very limited - he can just put cash in).
I want to limit the aforementioned partner and cut another one clean, but there are only so many hours in the day. I can’t do it all.
I’ve been in the same position with partners that don’t contribute the money or the time as I had viewed the agreement. Straight mortgages or participatory notes give you access to the money. The adjusted PACtrust gives promise for partnering. But the problem is still the lack of time. Do you do the prospecting? Do you do the negotiating? Do you do the marketing? Do you do the closing? What about payment collection? Is there rehab or a cleanup that has to be done. While you can do each of these better than the next guy you still have to learn who you can delegate each task to and how trustworthy they are at actually getting it done. All that and they aren’t even a direct employee. The rewards of the passive investor aren’t as good as the active participant. Financially you may be able to do well passively but you don’t get the enjoyment of putting it all to together. When you find that perfect partner do you share?