Newbie in Need of Advice - Co-borrow with Partner?

[Brandon F.]

Hi All, 

First time poster and rookie in the real estate investing game. My friend and I are partnering up to start building a real estate portfolio in the Massachusetts area. Our strategy is to start out by buying several strong cash flowing multi family residential buildings (4 units or less) and then eventually take the cash flow from these properties and get into commercial apartment buildings (5+ units). We just had a multi property offer accepted on two properties (4 unit and a 3 unit) and now the question is should we both be co-borrowers on the loans or should we split them up and take out one loan a piece? The mortgage company we are working with said the Fannie and Freddie guidelines are that an individual can only have 6 mortgages at a time, meaning if we co-borrow on all of our properties we could only purchase 6 with conventional financing. 

As for our individual financial situations, I have a bit higher income and credit score, but have a large amount of student loan debt (80K). He has no student loan debt. 

I wanted to throw this situation out to the BP community to see what your thoughts are on the best strategy here? 

Thanks!
Brandon