My girlfriend and I are planning on getting into real estate investing. She has a very solid well paying job, and I work for myself, so we're thinking that we'll both contribute equal capital at first, and she may contribute more than myself as time goes on. I will probably be doing more of the management work, but we'll both be working together as well. 
My main question is about allocating capital from the start. We both have a decent amount of cash, but I feel that we should try to take advantage of low rates at the moment, while she is more interested in mostly cash purchases. We'll probably try to purchase duplexes or other mutli family homes at first, hopefully scaling up as time goes on. Of course having a decent amount of cash between us means we can scale up quicker, but I would rather not tie up most of our savings(we have retirement accounts as well so it's not going to be all of our assets), if we have the option to finance some projects as first. 
Does anyone have any thoughts or similar experience? 
Thanks :)

I think that's a great idea!

Use leverage to purchase multifamiles.

Look into FHA loans

Thanks rosston, I think I was mainly looking for some encouragement. The both of us tend to be rather risk averse at times, so I'm a little out of my element being the one to push us :)