The Partner Dance

Back in the day, we took any business partner who came along. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, without them, I wouldn't have this many homes in Alabama and I wouldn't have so much to write about.

Originally Mr. Partner approached Marty about real estate investing. Just like us, Mr. Partner owned properties in the Phoenix metro area. We had no conceivable idea what this really meant. A partnership sounded good to us. Half the risk sounded good to us. Some documents were drawn up, and voila! a partnership was formed.

Around the exact same time, Vance, a quiet reserved man, approached my husband about perhaps investing together. Vance primarily invested in the stock market. He wasn't a real estate investor and wanted to capitalize on our limited experience (two rentals in the Phoenix area). We drew up some documents and voila! a partnership was formed.

Here's where it got interesting. Mr. Partner, Vance and Marty all work at the same place (or at least Marty works there for a few more weeks). Mr. Partner, excited about this new venture, told anyone in a half mile radius about how great this was he and Marty were going to be real estate partners. Mr. Partner is one of those doesn't-have-much-private-in-his-private-life kinds of folks. Vance never told a soul--and we appreciate his discretion. In fact, Mr. Partner didn't know we were also partnering with Vance.

Although Mr. Partner was excited about this great union, every property we approached him about was turned down. This house was too new... This house was too old... This house wasn't waterproof and that could cause potential issues when the next ice age came along...

This went on for more than a year.

This was a stark contrast to Vance. I would approach him about a home. Give him the numbers (which I also did with Mr. Partner) and he would say in his reverent manner, "Yes, that looks very good." And, we would end up with a home.

Along came our transition to Alabama. Given that we had three homes with Vance and Mr. Partner really wanted to buy something, we went to Mr. Partner first. We gave him the numbers and said, "What do you think? Do you want to invest in Alabama?". Nope. The home was too far away. Too much risk.

We then approached Vance. He said, "Yes, this looks very good."

By this time, I had given up on Mr. Partner. We had a good thing going with Vance. Two more homes in Alabama and Mr. Partner got a clue. We didn't need him. Mr. Partner had figured this out and was none-too-happy. He wanted investment properties. We were no longer investing in Phoenix (the real estate market got too high). After a moment of clarity Mr. Partner realized if he wanted to invest with us, he would have to look to the South. So, he jumped on the Bama bandwagon.

As soon as he decided Alabama was the greatest place to buy rental homes--ever, Mr. Partner began telling his co-workers about what a great concept it was to invest out of state. Given he hadn't actually purchased anything with us, I appreciated his vote of confidence.

About six months into our Alabama adventure, another of Marty Sunshine's coworkers approached us about what we were doing. Jim had heard about our greatly exaggerated success of owning two properties (neither with Mr. Partner--his source) in Alabama. This time, we had financial statements. So, we showed Jim our overall vision. He had never invested in real estate and this looked good to him. A week later, we drew up some documents and voila! a partnership was formed.

to be continued