appraisal business

[wyecoyote]

Myself and another appraiser are considering opening our own business together as partners. Has anyone had any dealing's with this and if so what are the good and bad points? Also is it better to go as an S corp or a C Corp? My understanding is that an LLC would not work because and LLC is for a Sole Propritor (spell check would be nice). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[slacker]

Will you be able to perform any more appraisals combined than you would on your own?

I have a parnter but we advertise as two seperate operations anonymously. We split the work but as the client is thumbing through the Yellow Pages our chances of getting assignments doubles.

Got the idea from a florist who operated 3 different shops within 5 miles of each other. People thought they were going to the competition when all along he's cashing the check.

 

[wall]

Opened a partnership with a guy that I previously worked with. Been in business 3 years now, and things couldn't be better. We opened as an S Corp., and it seems to work fine.

 

[MARKETVALUE]

My partner and I have an S corp. It seems to be the best option that we can find. Remeber when you go into business with someone, you have a full time partner who has an equal interest. Its a little like a marriage but without all the emotions. One of the primary benefits that we took into consideration when we opened up, is the advantage of having two. You can take a weeks vacation and when you come back you are still in business and it hasnt skipped a beat. A huge advantage to those who have to put things on hold when they want some time off.

We couldnt be happier. Good Luck.

MRM

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

As long as you both FEEL that the work and money is equally split, all will be fine. When one feels that the other is doing less work.....

The marriage analogy is pretty good.

 

[Leon Stewart]

Pam:

You have hit the nail on the head. Partnerships work alright if they are just structured as a Partnership, but are operated as two Individual Sole Proprietorships while splitting expenses. In a partnership you will usually have one partner who expect to do less work and get most of the money.

As one poster indicated, "his partner covers for him while he goes on vacation", but how can one person do the work that were previously done by two Appraisers, and does the working partner gets more money when he is responsible for producing the work of two, and does the vacationing partner continue to receive some kind of pay even though additional work hours are needed to produce the work while he's not working.

Large businesses can cover for vacationing employees because they have employees they can move around. Whereas an Appraiser has to perform his own work, because he has to signoff on it, and Clients expect a specific person to complete their work, so a Licensed/Certified Appraiser has to Replace another Licensed or Certified Appraiser, and if one already has an adequate workload he/she can't usually add the full workload of another Appraiser.

leart3