Please share your experience with partnerships

[Jordan Drinkhouse]

I am settled in my first house hack and I'm getting the itch to find another deal.  The person who sold us our current duplex also owns the one next door and has expressed interest in selling it to us.  We are very interested in acquiring this because of its proximity to our first investment.  I am still at the point in my journey where I want to do most of the maintenance myself and therefore having our two investments juxtaposed is very appealing.  This leads me to my first question which is what is your experience with living so close to your tenants? Currently we have a family member renting the other unit of our duplex.

Secondly, I am exploring financing options for the acquisition and am considering a partnership with an out of state relative. I do have the financial ability to complete the deal without them. Their ideal is situation is to just bring money to the table and remain hands off of management responsibilities, which I am okay with because I want the experience.  They do have 8 doors in New Orleans, where they live, so I assume they will bring some knowledge and guidance.  My question is what are some structures you have used for partnerships and how did they turn out?  Is it better to just use their funding as a hard money loan or let them buy in for equity.  I understand the answer is not so cut and dry, and I look forward to reading everyone's' thoughts on the matter.