The JV addendum is two paragraphs and they want 2,500 from me

What secures the 2,500? Right now the answer is his character, which may be excellent and is still not a document. Ask whether you can be added as a named buyer on the purchase agreement alongside him, or whether the earnest gets wired to escrow directly from you with a receipt in your name. Either one turns a promise into a position.

@arbor fair. Access is 400 feet on a paved township road, and I've looked at the parcel on the county GIS. His 61,500 comes from two closed sales he sent me, 18 acres at 2,900 an acre and 31 acres at 2,650, both within about four miles. That's where I get uneasy, because the second one included a pole barn and he didn't adjust for it.

@sable the escrow receipt idea is the useful one. On the addendum, the exact sentence is "the parties agree to cooperate in good faith to close the transaction and shall divide the assignment fee 60 percent to Assignor and 40 percent to Contributor after return of the Contribution." That's it. No definition of assignment fee, so if he takes a 3,000 marketing expense off the top before the split, the sentence doesn't stop him.

2,500 at risk against 5,600 of upside is a ratio I could live with if I believed the 5,600. I don't yet, because @warrant just told us one of the two comps had a barn on it. Strip the barn out and your per acre number softens, and every dollar of softening comes out of the fee, which comes out of your 40 percent before it touches his 60.

What happens on day 200? Land can sit. If the builder passes and he has to market it to whoever wants 22 acres in that township, you may be four months out with your 2,500 gone into a survey sketch nobody needed. I'd want a date in the addendum after which you can ask for your money back out of his pocket, and I'd want to know if he has a pocket.

Three things I'd chase before the earnest goes hard, and one of them is not in your document at all.

Access on GIS is a drawing. Get the deed language and confirm the frontage is actually part of the conveyed parcel, because I've seen a strip along the road held out in an old highway deed and the buyer discovers it at the survey.

Zoning and the minimum lot size, plus whether that county requires anything from a subdivider at three lots versus four. Builders price around that threshold and it moves your 61,500.

The chain of title on an inherited parcel. Whether an heirship affidavit or a probate is needed depends on the state, and it's the sort of thing that eats a 21 day feasibility period whole.

On the addendum itself, whether it needs to be recorded or whether your interest can be protected by a memorandum also varies by state, and that's an attorney question in the state where the land sits. Ask it before you wire.

Honest read of the shape of this: you're paying 2,500 for a seat next to someone who knows how to do the thing. The 5,600 is the sweetener. If you're fine calling it tuition and the person is worth learning from, sign it. If you'd be angry about losing the 2,500, the two paragraph addendum tells you exactly how much recourse you'd have.

Where does the actual work happen in this deal? He found the seller and he knows the builder. Once the earnest is wired, what does he do for the next three weeks that you couldn't watch and learn from? If the answer is nothing much, @meridian's tuition framing is generous.

This isn't income, it's a job where somebody else has the steering wheel. I came to this forum wanting the version that pays without me having to trust a partner's spreadsheet.

Curious about a different part. When he markets the contract to his builder, is he advertising the land or his position in the contract? I've read that where that line sits and whether it triggers a license requirement depends on the state, and if the answer is unclear on this deal I'd want to know how he handles it before my name is anywhere near the paperwork.

Notes keep coming up in what I read, and every time I try to file this under paper it doesn't fit. Your 2,500 isn't a loan with a rate and a maturity, it's a share of a profit that may not exist. If it were a note secured by something you'd at least know what you get when it goes wrong. Here the answer is two paragraphs and good faith.