Christian OsgoodCEO, Multifamily Strategy · CEO at Multifamily Strategy

Don't be dumb‼️#multifamilycollective #realestateinvesting #multifamily #investment #entrepreneur

10 Jun 2025 · 1 min

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In this short monologue, Christian Osgood warns real‑estate investors against treating partnerships like permanent marriages. He stresses the importance of pre‑negotiating a clear exit strategy when forming a partnership to buy apartment complexes. Osgood advises inserting an option‑to‑purchase clause in the operating agreement that sets a fixed buyout price and a defined timeframe. He illustrates the concept with his first deal: a $300,000 investor helped fund a $2 million building, and Osgood held an option to buy the investor out for $600,000 after five years, which he exercised after refinancing, giving the investor a doubled return while Osgood retained the property. The overarching lesson is that partnerships can be used as a financing tool to acquire cash‑flowing real estate, provided there is a predetermined path for ownership transfer, enabling investors to scale their holdings while ensuring all parties achieve a “massive win.”

Chapters

Don't be an idiot when you partner in real estate. Too many people assume they're going to partner forever. It's going to be this magical partnership. There's no predetermined breakup. Look, your partnership is not a marriage. You're buying an apartment complex. Maybe you're buying a few apartment complexes together. At some point, there needs to be a clear path to separate. Now, you can always change the plan in the future, but you want to pre-negotiate exactly how you are going to divide the assets in the future. You do this with an option contract. When you write your operating agreement, put a little clause at the end that says, hey, uh, one of us has an option to purchase the other out at fixed price that everyone agrees on. For me, my first deal, someone invested $300,000 to help me buy a $2 million building. I had an option to purchase them out for $600,000 in a 5-year period. Now when we refinanced, the building paid that for me. So while I got a free building, they doubled their money. It's a great trade, but you always have that option. The goal is to own your real estate. If you don't have enough money, you use the partnerships to buy time and make sure that everyone gets a massive win. If you do this, you can buy an unlimited amount of real estate as long as it cash flows every time you buy it.