Buying a house with your SO

[Ric in RVA]

Originally Posted by Axius

Don't do it unless she is just going to help home shop and you plan on having the mortgage under your name only and can pay for it on your own.

This .... If you can't qualify without her income then you need to buy a smaller house, rent longer, or get married and qualify together. If one of you leaves the house goes if you are using both incomes.

Then charge her rent.

If she marries you one day it will be part hers anyways.

No reason for you to provide a place to live for free. Yeah I am cold.



(Flame suit on....)

[BMW F22]

Originally Posted by Ric in RVA

This .... If you can't qualify without her income then you need to buy a smaller house, rent longer, or get married and qualify together. If one of you leaves the house goes if you are using both incomes.

Then charge her rent.

If she marries you one day it will be part hers anyways.

No reason for you to provide a place to live for free. Yeah I am cold.

(Flame suit on....)

If anything, she makes a bit more than I do and has more in savings. So I would be paying her rent. Lol

[Axius]

All in all I think you should give it more time. I didn't buy a house with my ex, but she did house hunt with me and I bought one closer to her and an hour + from work. Now we've parted ways and I'm stuck out in BFE.

[radiofrequency]

I did. We retained an attorney with expertise in this area (contracts etc.). Basic provisions are that each of us have to agree to a sale should we go that route; how proceeds of a sale are split; how mortgage payments are made; how property taxes and insurance are handled; you also want to ensure that each of you has a life insurance policy for the amount of the outstanding note in case one of you passes, the other can pay the note. Also a good idea to place the home in a trust, all of this should not cost more than $1 000 to facilitate the contract - best money I ever spent.

PS:
1. If you are renting together at present, nothing changes except that you now have a home/investment together vs. paying a landlord.
2. View the process a transactional rather than a romantic endeavor, if it becomes an investment in which you are sharing risk/reward (which it is), then you can both proceed in the cold light of day as opposed to viewing it through the lens of romance.
3. Unspoken expectations are the mother of all f*^$ ups, this conversation with everything open on the table will give you a good idea of how smart your SO is, likewise for you, but leave no stone unturned, this should be a mature conversation between you and your SO.

[zx10guy]

I would not do this unless you do what radiofrequency did above which is to have a contract. You never know what will happen in the future and having something like real estate involved which has its own specific laws gets messy. If you two were married and acquired the house together, that's another thing due to specific courts which handle separation of property if the marriage were to dissolve. Also you two haven't been together long enough even if you're living together in a rental to be treated as common law marriage. Not sure if your state has such a statute.

You really don't want to mess around with something like this without specific legal safe guards. There's enough of a mess with dating couples and buying cars together.

But with all that said, I did consider buying a property with my then girlfriend now wife. It was an investment property as I already own my own home. She wanted to also get an investment property and I thought this would be a good way for both of us to get what we wanted and to move towards another step in building our relationship together. If something were to happen to us, my thinking it's only an investment property and not something that affects where I live. In the end, she couldn't pony up half of the down payment so I ended up buying the property on my own. She was involved in all the option selections as this was new construction. It was fun for both of us to go through the decisions together. But I do wish she would have been able to front the money and buy it with me. Because it's apparent with her thinking and decisions now that she doesn't understand the huge financial commitment a house puts on you. Even when she saw me stroke out that big 20% down payment check, she doesn't fathom the money involved nor does she understand the legal commitment you're obligating yourself to with the signed mortgage documents.

[Ric in RVA]

Originally Posted by BMW F22

If anything, she makes a bit more than I do and has more in savings. So I would be paying her rent. Lol

So she she on it in her name....

Either way 50 percent of Marriages fail. Way more SO fail.

I'd buy a couch with a SO....maybe a beater car.

A house. No way.

[fun ticket]

I would say buying a house with someone you are not married to has to go down as one of the worst moves an individual could make. It is filled with risks.

No brainer, do not do it.

[jtodd_fl]

Actually, I just realized that I did this very thing. I forgot that we didn't get married till a little later. Built the house in 96. Married in 97. Still together. Had zero protections in place. Never even occurred to me at the time. In retrospect, that was idiotic, but we had been together for 3 years by then. I would definitely get some type of contract in place, if I were you. It is for her protection too.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by fun ticket

I would say buying a house with someone you are not married to has to go down as one of the worst moves an individual could make. It is filled with risks.

No brainer, do not do it.

This. Why even consider it!

Madness of the highest order.

[Stage1]

I bought a condo with my ex in 2011. We had been together 5 years at that point. I had always suggested renting a place together to see what it was like (I had my own apt and she lived at home while finishing school). She didnt want to waste money on rent so we found a nice luxury condo, got a good mortgage rate/down payment and bought. Needless to say, we made it one year together there and then I kicked her out. She paid half the mortgage for another year, then I moved out and she moved in with a roommate and the roommate pays my portion of the mortgage. She refuses to sell since she doesn't want to move (or cause she wants to piss me off) and now I am stuck being connected to her.

tl;dr it can get messy. dont do it

[silvergray545]

I will never own a house with a girl I'm not married to.

[eforty6_m3]

My wife and I bought our first house before we were even engaged. We both had our names on the title and mortgage in case anything happened, but you have to gauge the relationship. Nobody knows your relationship better than you and your SO, so you have to be honest with yourselves before making this type of commitment.

We knew we were eventually going to get married and decided the time was right to buy a house when we did and we're now married with a baby boy, a dog and on our 2nd home (just moved in last month to a brand new colonial!).

Good luck!

[csu87]

Shit I was concerned about putting my wife's name on our house. No way would I put a short term GF. (Short term for me. Been with wife for too long.)

[wrickem]

Originally Posted by radiofrequency

I did. We retained an attorney with expertise in this area (contracts etc.). Basic provisions are that each of us have to agree to a sale should we go that route; how proceeds of a sale are split; how mortgage payments are made; how property taxes and insurance are handled; you also want to ensure that each of you has a life insurance policy for the amount of the outstanding note in case one of you passes, the other can pay the note. Also a good idea to place the home in a trust, all of this should not cost more than $1 000 to facilitate the contract - best money I ever spent.

PS:
1. If you are renting together at present, nothing changes except that you now have a home/investment together vs. paying a landlord.
2. View the process a transactional rather than a romantic endeavor, if it becomes an investment in which you are sharing risk/reward (which it is), then you can both proceed in the cold light of day as opposed to viewing it through the lens of romance.
3. Unspoken expectations are the mother of all f*^$ ups, this conversation with everything open on the table will give you a good idea of how smart your SO is, likewise for you, but leave no stone unturned, this should be a mature conversation between you and your SO.

Are you still together? How long has it been?

[///Mongo]

I didn't even put my SO's name on our lease...

[TBN54]

If she doesn't let you eat her ass, don't do it.

[F30lolz]

Pic of said SO will determine if she is worthy material.

On a serious note, if she is 'marriage material':

Let's you go to strip clubs w/o blinking an eye
Doesn't bring up the fact that you have to sell your car to get a minivan if you plan on having kids
Lets you be you whenever
Not make you buy her a $75k ring
Not hound you for a $25k wedding

Do it.

[BMW F22]

Lots of good advice here. Thank you for that! I definitely thought about some kind of contract to protect both of us. Again, it's just a thought for the future. It probably won't happen until at at least mid-late next year (if it's to happen at all). This is more research than anything.

[BMW F22]

Originally Posted by F30lolz

Pic of said SO will determine if she is worthy material.

On a serious note, if she is 'marriage material':

Let's you go to strip clubs w/o blinking an eye
Doesn't bring up the fact that you have to sell your car to get a minivan if you plan on having kids
Lets you be you whenever
Not make you buy her a $75k ring
Not hound you for a $25k wedding

Do it.

She would let me go to strip clubs for sure. She trusts me and besides, I rarely ever go there.
She for sure doesn't care what car I/she/we drive. Neither of us are opposed to mini vans.
I can be pretty quirky and she knows that and accepts it (as she can be the same sometimes).
She is really practical and doesn't want a huge ring.
I know for a fact that she doesn't want a huge wedding and neither do I. We have a few friends getting married and we were talking about how we would want our wedding if/when we were to tie the knot. We both agreed that there is no sense in throwing a huge party for other people to enjoy (instead of focusing more on us).

[hockey21]

Originally Posted by BMW F22

I cringed the other night when I was sleepy and she went to move my car. Thankfully nothing happened as she was extra careful with it since she knows how much I baby my car. Only been together a year or so so this is something that could happen next year assuming things go well.

Some say that people's bad habits come out when you're living together. That scares me.

what is the rush? i would hold off. either get married then buy a house, or rent, then get married then buy... i don't see the benefit of buying the house before the others.

[hockey21]

or, why docent just one person buy the house, and the other agree to pay rent...

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by hockey21

or, why docent just one person buy the house, and the other agree to pay rent...

From a financial protection stand point yes. But from a relationship stand point, there will be some challenges. I've experienced this and still am experiencing this with my then GF and now wife. Her comment at times has been she doesn't feel like either of the places are her homes. It's decreased as time passes and we settle into an equilibrium with things.