Buying a home — with a little help from friends
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It's tough to buy a home with someone who's unrelated to you — a practice known as copurchasing. Most banks are reluctant to broker mortgages to unmarried people looking to buy together, and it's still a relatively rare occurrence. But a new City of Boston program aims to change that.
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In her recent State Of The City address, Mayor Michelle Wu unveiled
Copurchasing isn't completely novel. In the 1920s, working-class Jewish New Yorkers joined forces to
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But owning a home with friends isn't necessarily the same thing as living in a co-op. Some co-ops encourage shared social events like dinners and meetings, while others have a more intentional theme — such as the
Either way, you're sharing not just the home-buying costs but the oft-overlooked hassles of owning a home. If the furnace breaks or if a tree falls on your roof, you all are responsible. But that also means you don't have to fix it alone.
Evan Seitz co-owns a large house in Roslindale with five friends. The idea of buying together arose when Seitz and some of his future co-owners were housemates at the Unitarian Universalist Lucy Stone Cooperative in Roxbury, where residents cook, clean, and shop together, sometimes several times a week. They were feeling burned out by the obligations of that co-op living style. 'We sort of discovered that we were all planning on leaving,' Seitz says. . Co-ownership of a house, split equally, struck them as an ideal balance between affording Boston housing prices, transitioning to a more laid-back living situation, and holding on to some of the community benefits they enjoyed at the Lucy Stone Cooperative.
But like most people trying to co-own a house, they had trouble getting a mortgage from a bank. 'We got lucky and were able to secure a private mortgage through my housemate's mom, who had this lump sum of money from her late partner's life insurance and was happy to loan it to us,' Seitz says.
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Margaret Rosewitz, a book production coordinator, ran into a similar hurdle while trying to buy a multiunit property with her sister and a close friend in Dorchester. 'The concept of a mortgage with three people seemed to be confusing for our broker,' Rosewitz says. 'But on the other hand, our real estate agent was really excited about the idea because it felt novel at the time. He had never done anything like this before.'
After closing on a triple-decker in Codman Square, the three were introduced to Ingram-Bee, the Jamaica Plain real estate agent who has channeled her interest in co-ownership into offering free informational seminars for aspiring homebuyers. She uses success stories like Rosewitz's in her sessions as tangible examples of what unrelated buyers should anticipate as they house-hunt.
'I break it down into three categories,' Ingram-Bee says. 'There are the managerial questions such as, do you mostly want your own spaces or will there be more communal spaces? The financial side is often the most important; you need to have candid, in-depth conversations about your incomes, debts, credit scores, and money habits.' And just as crucial, according to Ingram-Bee, is the legal structure of co-ownership agreements. This includes provisions for scenarios like one co-owner deciding to move and sell their share of the property.
One of the people living with Seitz decided to move on three years after they bought the house together. 'We had collectively planned for something like this by setting aside money that would allow the rest of us to buy the other person's share,' Seitz says.
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As an aspiring copurchaser myself, I am currently renting with a few friends and testing our compatibility. I can attest that until lately, learning the basics of cobuying a home in Boston was a matter of asking around. I was introduced to Seitz and Ingram-Bee through friends, and Ingram-Bee connected me to Rosewitz.
The City of Boston's new program aims to make things more official. The program includes interest-deferred loans to help copurchasers cover down payments and closing costs. Households earning up to 100 percent of the area's median income can secure up to $50,000 in interest-deferred loans (payable upon sale, transfer, or refinancing of one's property share), while those making up to 135 percent can receive up to $35,000.
Paige Roosa, the director of the mayor's Housing Innovation Lab and the architect of the CoPurchasing Housing Pilot program, says that copurchasing with individuals whose incomes exceed the income limits would not prevent an eligible applicant from receiving the financial assistance themselves.
The main problem that this program may help to solve for many aspiring home owners is the astronomical cost of Boston's real estate. 'We had been trying to figure out how to address the lack of supply of homes on the private market that are affordable to the kind of folks that can use our funding,' Roosa says. Supporting aspiring co-owners, as Roosa puts it, is a creative way for Boston to unlock more of the city's market-rate housing for more people.
Not that long ago, many of us temporarily experienced living in the same house with extended family and friends. The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was a remarkable moment when millions chose to live together, for social support, safety, and financial reasons. During that winter, I
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In late 2020, those unanswered questions were major roadblocks. Now, Boston's new program is bringing the prospect of home ownership within reach for many more people.
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