Please, please help me decide a fair profit split on this particular flipping business!

Please, please help me decide a fair profit split on this particular flipping business!

Wholesaler · Lafayette, LA · Member since 2010 · 7 posts · 0 votes

Oh most wise BP members,

I will try to make this as short as possible, but still supply most of the relevant details. Please help me to come to an objective decision on how we should split the profits from our projects.

My cousin and I are flipping houses together. I have done 6 houses so far with him and all have been profitable averaging 25-30%. I have been doing this quite a few years and know the building and flipping business thoroughly. My cousin is smart, has an appraisal license, but no previous construction or flipping experience. He lives in our target market and I am 2 hours away, so I am sort of HQ and he's boots on the ground. He started out pretty much just doing what I told him, but after a few projects now he knows what he's doing and is much more autonomous.

We started with a small property and used subs, on the second I got a remodelers license and we put together a crew and did all except the trades ourselves. That was quite profitable, but a huge headache - now we use a GC/trades hybrid approach. I'll just break down each of our jobs and you guys please let me know what you would consider fair:

So far on all but one deal I have provided all the investment capital from start to finish - about half cash and half personal LOC. One that other one deal I did a personal private loan at 12% but paid the loan costs out of the project and gave a mortgage on the property to the private lender.

We split the cost of our direct mail campaign and have a staffer do the mailings and place online craigslist and other adverts. We both monitor the MLS and take calls and emails from our bird dogs, so lets say the hard part of finding the deals is even.

For leads, we both weed through and I usually decide which ones are worth pursuit, and he actually goes out to see them, takes photos, makes notes, and pulls comps for the ARV if we get that far. I make the decision to make an offer and do the negotiating and write the contracts.

I do the purchase, legal, closings, etc. as he is not a named partner of the LLC.

When we have a property it is his responsibility to get it renovated. I decide the level of rehab and budget, the design ( our rehabs are not just cosmetic ), and usually pick out the materials, colors, etc. He gets all the work done. He will meet with contractors, collect bids, and put together a scope of work. We generally discuss and agree on who we are going to use for each job. From that point he does all the ground work like utility turn on, permits, going by the job(s) a couple times a day, picking up materials, calling the termite guy, writing checks, etc. etc.  We speak once or twice a day and he fills out a report of what got done on each job, what mailers went out, who got paid, etc. along with keeping up with the expense account for each job. I spend maybe an hour of my day talking to him about the jobs, making decisions and answering any questions, and another hour researching our next acquisition or checking comps. We both appraise property the rest of the day.

When a project is complete and its time to sell he will oversee our staff running internet and web ads, we put it in the MLS after a couple weeks with a flat rate listing, and he will put out the signs, etc. and show the property to any non-represented buyers.

I want to have a totally fair partnership that can one day be 50/50, but I don't think it is at that point now and I'm having a hard time being objective with family in judging time vs value vs risk at this point, so I'm turning to you in the BP community will steer me in the right direction.

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

CJ

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  • Dev HornPro Member
    Flipper/Rehabber · Arlington, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    11y

    It sounds like you have a pretty fair split on the work, but clearly you are taking on full weight of the financial risk.

    Seems like you have an good argument to get 60% or 70% of the net, given the imbalance on the $ risk.

  • Real Estate Consultant · Alpharetta, GA · Member since 2014 · 661 posts · 400 votes
    11y

    @Chris Johnson

    Hey man good question. 

    IMO if you are putting up all the money (which it looks like you are) that starts the deal off at 50/50 not including any work that you put into the job. 

    So in my opinion I would be at 70/30 or 75/25. 

    Good luck. 

    AC

  • Real Estate Investor · Cheyenne, WY · Member since 2014 · 71 posts · 37 votes
    11y

    I think you should consider what it would look like if your partner tipped in 50% of the equity and then again 25%.  For what he is doing now managing the rehab side sounds a lot like a GC, so maybe 5% of the total rehab cost + a flat fee for the other work?

    Remember that hopefully at some point hopefully he will start tipping in equity, if you value what he does now at 25-30% of the profit, and if he starts tipping in 50% of the equity does that mean his share is now 75-80%?

    Remember when you have cash the number of people who will work with you is pretty much unlimited, where as your partners options are more limited.

  • Wholesaler · Lafayette, LA · Member since 2010 · 7 posts · 0 votes
    11y

    Thanks for your replies guys.

    I have been thinking we are splitting the work pretty evenly from a value standpoint even though he is putting in substantially more actual hours, so I was planning a 25% split for him. I have always seen it as 50 for the money, 50 for the work.  He originally wanted 50 but realizes that unless I am down to just showing up and closing a sale every few months for a check then that's not fair. He is asking for a third and I may go that route. I have other projects going on and he is family. Jesse, I figure if I value him at 25% now, then if he kicks in half the equity that would be another 25 and then we would be equal. That is the plan anyway, but unless he picks up the tempo or gets a bigger split it will never happen anyway as he is not doing enough jobs now to set any aside for equity. Part of that is the amount of money that I am able to allocate to this partnership however as with 200k he can only really do one at a time in that market and his credit is bad so he cant leverage that cash. Does that change anyone's opinion?

  • Developer · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 902 votes
    11y

    Curious to see where this went and how it turned out? The other thing I would do is just ask him what he thinks is fair. If you blind side him with this and don't have a conversation about it first, it could be disastrous...

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