How I Lost My Sleep Over My First attempt at a Real Estate Syndication Project

 In 2017 a friend introduced me to their acquaintance – we will refer to this acquaintance as Pete (all names have been changed for privacy reasons). Pete was a well-known local construction business owner and house flipper in one of the Midwest states. Pete’s most recent real estate investment project was somewhat different than his usual modus operandi – this time it was a longer-term ownership of a multi-unit apartment project, and Pete was searching for syndication partners. Up to that point I had only invested as a Limited Partner (LP), so I was excited for this opportunity to finally step into a General Partner (GP) role and ramp up my syndication investment experience. I proceeded into performing due diligence of both, Pete and the deal he was offering. This specific deal gave me invaluable hands-on General Partner and syndication know-how and real-life asset management, as well as contract negotiation expertise that enabled me to vastly improve my skillset. In this case study, I am going to go over the series of relatively minor initial missteps that later snowballed into a near-catastrophe experience. I will describe how I was able to pull the project from the brink of disaster and make it a success.