WORDS I LIKE — Clear agreements protect good friendships.
Co-buying used to be a niche idea.
Now it’s mainstream.
A U.S. News survey this month found 37% of 2026 buyers plan to purchase a home with someone other than a spouse.
Fifteen percent with a friend. Twelve percent with a parent. Nine percent with a sibling.
In Colorado — now the third-most expensive state in the country — you can see why.
Here’s the part most people miss.
Co-buying isn’t splitting the rent. It’s sharing a mortgage and a deed for the next thirty years.
When two friends sign a loan together, the lender doesn’t see two people splitting the payment. The lender sees two people fully responsible for the whole thing. That’s called joint and several liability. If one stops paying, the other owes all of it.
Then there’s the deed. How you take title decides what happens if one of you wants out. Joint tenancy means equal ownership and automatic transfer to the survivor. Tenants in common lets each person own a defined share that can be sold or passed to heirs.
The piece most co-buyers skip is the exit plan. Friendships change. Jobs move. People get married. A written co-ownership agreement, drafted before closing, handles all of it. Who pays what. Who maintains what. How a buyout gets priced. Call it the prenup of co-buying — because that’s what it is.
Done right, this is a real path into a market that has priced a lot of people out. Done casually, it’s the fastest way to lose the house and the friendship.
THIS WEEK'S TAKEAWAY
Talk about the exit before you talk about the address. The friendship survives when the structure comes first.
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