Invest with a partner (my brother) or go solo?

[Shamim Toufighian]

Alright, so my brother and I both live in Los Angeles and we're both looking to get into REI. We both want to get a 2-4plex to owner occupy, but it's more difficult to finance if we go solo (but not impossible). If we were to do it together, we'd want to owner occupy a 4plex... meaning I would take one unit, he would take another, and we'd rent out the remaining two. Here's a list of pros/cons I came up with... how good/bad of an idea is this? Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!

PROS

• have a better chance of purchasing a property
• gives us more options of what to purchase at a higher price point
• can share landlording responsibilities
• potentially putting in less of a downpayment, freeing up cash for another investment
• other stuff I'm sure I'm missing

CONS

• only two of the units would be rented out
• not getting the max rent from the unit the other brother is living in
• other stuff I'm sure I'm missing

[Bana Haffar]

I would agree wit David Tipton and add that it would also depend on the property itself and how the numbers look. You still want to be making solid rental income from the remaining rental units on the property. 

...you could also look at is as a temporary situation, renovate the units you live in then move out and rent them out at market.