$500,000 cash on hand; Do I buy outright or divide and borrow?

[CL Ziegler]

I am weighing whether or not it's best to, say, buy five 100K properties outright...

...or pay 50K down on ten properties since credit's fine and borrowing is not a problem.

Anyone got advice for me on this?

Of course, in this post I've boiled this down to the thumbnail basics, but it does accurately reflect the choice I'm facing currently. Thanks in advance for any input. Love the site, and very fond of ALL of you out there.

(admin: is the underline function broken? thanks)