Joint Venturing

Recently I wrote about private lending and how you can work with other investors to profit together. However, the same can be accomplished with investors that might not have ever considered real estate. In fact, they may be someone you never even knew had the funds to invest in real estate in the first place. The more you let others know about what you are doing as a real estate investor the more opportunities may present themselves. Real estate investing is a sales position and the number one rule of sales is ABC, “always be closing!!”

Everyone always says to have your elevator pitch ready and I have to agree. No matter where you are or what you are doing you should always try to bring up what you do. I have learned that most people are intrigued with investment real estate, especially when they see tons of reality television shows about it nowadays. Usually bringing it up is effortless because most people who do not know each other ask the other what they do for a living. Be ready to answer all the questions and have business cards ready. As you tell the group what you do you will see some of the people’s interest increase as you speak. Make sure to give everyone a card but when you get a moment take the people that showed the most interest aside and set up a meeting. Your chances of finding more investors, whether they are buyers or lenders, will increase the more you do this.

Now that you have a potential joint venture partner in front of you, be prepared. The last thing you want to do is set a meeting with a potential investor and not be ready. Give the investor a few options to choose from and do not force a square peg into a round hole. What I mean is not every investor’s risk tolerance will be the same and not all investor’s goals are equal. Although all investors want to see a profit how they go about making that profit is different. Make sure to ask them their goals and pay close attention to them as they will let you know how they would prefer to invest in real estate without you having to ask. Some examples include investors that make it clear they do not want a second job or deal with tenants or toilets. This let me know that they may be searching to be more interested in being a lender. On the other hand, investors want to learn how to invest in real estate and learn the best way there is to learn, hands on. This person would be great to JV with and teach them the steps from start to finish on an actual project. This meeting will also let you know if the investor is not ready to pull the trigger and still in the analysis stage of investing. These are investors that you keep in contact with and keep up to date with the projects you are working on. The hope is that they will eventually come off the side lines and begin investing in one fashion or another. Even if this “investor” never gets involved in real estate they will mention you to a person who is ready to invest and/or who has been looking to work with someone like you.

No matter if you are looking for more joint venturing partners, private funding, investors, etc. make sure you listen to what they are looking for. The last thing you want to do is offer them something they have no interest in participating in. Once you identify what they are searching for make sure the JV/partnership is a win-win.