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RLRE ON FACEBOOK
I’ve done a LOT of joint ventures over the years.(By joint venture, I mean a deal where I actually own a property with another person, and we have specific things we’re contributing. I DON’T mean an ongoing business partnership where we do all of a particular kind of deal together, and I don’t mean a syndication where a bunch of people put in money but don’t actually “do” anything, which requires a much more complex set of paperwork and exemptions).They’ve all gone pretty well, because once I learned to pick the right people AND DOCUMENT THE AGREEMENT IN DETAIL, it’s been smooth sailingBut I’ve noticed that every time I’ve done one, the agreement has gotten longer.Not because I love paperwork or complexity—it’s just the opposite, in fact. It’s because every joint venture I’ve seen go kablooey shows me another question that should have been answered BEFORE anyone put in money, signed a loan, started work, or bought a property together.So this week, I ran all my various JV agreements through AI and asked it to identify every question those agreements were designed to answer.The result?TWENTY PAGES OF QUESTIONS.Who contributes what? Who controls the money? Who makes which decisions? What happens when more money is needed? What if someone doesn’t do what they promised? What if the project takes longer than expected? What if one partner wants out? What if someone dies, divorces, becomes disabled, files bankruptcy, or simply stops returning calls? Who keeps the books? Who decides when to sell?Someone, or a lot of someones, are going to comment here that they hate partnerships, and then they’re going to tell an awful story about a partner who stole a bunch of money or was a family member that they now no longer speak to. But in my experience, JVs usually go bad because the partners never discovered—until the deal was underway—that they had completely different expectations. In fact, my guess is that a thorough JV checklist would cause more people than not to decide NOT to do a deal together, or to do it under some other structure like a private loan. That may be the best and least expensive outcome possible.I’ve watched loosely documented joint ventures end in lost money, ruined friendships, damaged reputations, tears, and lawsuits—all because the agreement was too simple, or didn’t exist at all.Which brings me to WHY I created this questionnaire, and the Sample JV Template that goes along with it, at this particular moment in time.The answer is, I promised everyone who registered for the National Real Estate Investing Summit by midnight tonight that I’d give them an “Template JV Contract”. And I many have gotten carried away.I made the 20-page question checklist, an explanation of what a JV agreement is—and is not—and a sample agreement to take to an attorney.Want it?There’s only one more chance to get it, and that’s by…signing up for the National Summit.Not at the usual website though…By pledging to WMKV (That’s the station I do my show on, in case you haven’t caught that…and it’s public radio, in case you haven’t caught THAT).The fund drive is TODAY, I have 25 tickets donated by OREIA at $247 each, and if you manage to get one, I’ll also send you this JV information. Today. You need to sign up for the Summit anyway, ‘cause I’ll be speaking about how to find and work with partners there, and I’m just one of over 40 presenters, and probably not even the most interesting one.And now you have the chance to do that AND support public radio.What a deal.If you want to make SURE you get one of those tickets, the safe thing is to go to WMKFfm dot org and grab it right off the website. Or you can listen in at 5 eastern at that same site, or on the app.But once they’re gone, they’re gone.