Both partners want to occupy separate units in a fourplex?

[Sara Faile]

I'm interested in purchasing a fourplex to start out a buy and hold career. My husband is soon separating from the airforce so we would love to take advantage of a VA loan and occupy one of the units ourselves. We have some cousins who are interested in potentially partnering with us and helping purchase half of the property and occupying one unit as well. This could be very helpful since securing financing for us might be difficult because we are transitioning into new jobs. Does this seem like a good plan? How would you structure the deal with the partners? Everything 50/50? Or would it be better if we just each did our own separate deal?