These friends chose ‘co-buying’ to achieve homeownership
While homeownership has traditionally been seen as a wonderful rite of passage, for many millennials and Gen Zers, the goal of buying a home feels unattainable.
2025 bank rate The survey found that 22% of prospective millennial buyers could not find a property they could afford and gave up on buying a home between 2020 and 2025. This was the highest percentage of any generation; Generation X with 17%, Generation Z and baby boomers with 12%.
Some other major barriers to homeownership include high mortgage rates and low supply.
Amanda Pendleton, home trends expert at Zillow, says potential home buyers need to get creative because they face two major hurdles: not enough savings for a down payment and fluctuating mortgage interest rates.
Some young homebuyers are increasingly exploring an unconventional way to achieve the American dream: “co-buying” with friends.
“Co-purchasing was out of the question ten years ago. It was a response to the affordability crisis that we were dealing with,” Pendleton told CNBC Make It.
While some experts say co-purchasing has become a viable option for homeownership, this is not the case for everyone. According to Zillow, the majority of homebuyers still prefer the more traditional route; 52% buy a property with a spouse/partner and 8% buy with a relative.
In 2023, 14% of buyers bought with a friend. However, this figure has dropped to 5% in 2025, according to the real estate market.
Pendleton says one reason why the co-purchase rate has fallen over the past few years is because rental prices have stabilized and mortgage interest rates are nearly double what they were during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The barrier to entry for homeownership is much higher. You have to stay in your home much longer to make that purchase affordable,” he says.
“The idea of buying with a friend sounds good, maybe for a few years, but knowing you have to stay in that home for eight to 10 years can make the purchase a little less appealing.”
Millennials represent the largest generation to share their homes with non-relatives. data shows.
In the very expensive housing markets of New York City and Washington, D.C., two friends found a solution in joint purchasing. And on the other side of the country, in Portland, Oregon, two couples found it to be the most attainable path to homeownership.
Here’s a look at their unique arrangement and why they say sharing a life and mortgage works.
Single mothers are starting a village in Washington, D.C.
Rascoe and Melvin purchased a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home earlier this year.
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Ayesha Rascoe, 40, and Jasmin Melvin, 39, have been friends for more than 15 years. In early 2025, the two found themselves divorced and looking for new places to live. Both women work as journalists in the D.C. area — Rascoe is the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition on Sunday and the weekend host of Up First — and decided to explore buying a home together in Washington, D.C.
“We weren’t first-time homebuyers,” Rascoe says.
“The most important thing for us was to own the village,” Melvin adds.
The couple purchased a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home for $905,000. They put down a 15% down payment of $133,015 and split the cost 60/40. Rascoe and Melvin signed a 30-year mortgage and split the monthly payment of just over $6,000 the same way they split their down payment.
Two friends split the monthly mortgage payment 60/40.
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To protect themselves, the friends signed a joint tenancy, which means they each own 100% of the house.
“If something happens to one of us, the other person will only own the house,” Melvin says. “We had to make that decision early.”
“It’s unusual, but when you fall in love with and marry someone you’ve known for maybe three or four years, you take much bigger risks,” Rascoe adds.
Rascoe says buying the house together helped the women start a village and see themselves as platonic co-parents.
“We’re raising our kids together. We’re partners in this, and we’re taking care of all five of these kids. We’re in this together,” Rascoe adds.
Friends investing in themselves in New York
When friends and colleagues Gilbert Nyantakyi and Kwame Nkrumah, both 28, realized they couldn’t afford to buy a place in New York City individually, they decided their best strategy was to reach a deal together.
Nyantakyi and Nkrumah live together in one of the flats of their 3-bedroom house and rent the other two.
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Nyantakyi and Nkrumah work in finance and technology in New York. The two, who have been friends for 18 years, consider themselves brothers and have always had a common interest in real estate, but they say they didn’t know the best way to break into the market.
When the two started looking for a home, they knew they wanted to buy a property with multiple apartments so they could live in one and rent out the others. They said they didn’t want to leave New York City, but they initially started buying outside of the Big Apple because they believed they couldn’t afford anything else.
They toured properties in the tri-state area, including Newark, Union City and Jersey City, New Jersey.
“Funny enough, these markets were actually starting to appreciate in value. We thought it made the most sense to go back to our familiar homes,” says Nyantakyi. “Why would we buy at a very expensive price somewhere else when we can buy at a very similar price in our own city?”
After a difficult months-long process, the duo purchased a three-family home in the Bronx for $730,000 in 2023. As a first-time buyer, Nyantakyi qualified for a Federal Housing Administration loan that allowed her friends to make a minimum down payment of 3.5%, or $25,550.
The two friends are using rental income from other units to help pay their mortgage.
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The friends live at home in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. The monthly mortgage is about $5,300, and according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, they are using some of the rental income from two other apartments to pay it off and then splitting what’s left equally.
“From the very beginning, we knew that this investment would yield the most returns after we both moved out. If life happens, for example, Kwame gets married, I get married too, and for one reason or another we have to move,” says Nyantakyi. “[I] “I think that’s when the real investment begins.”
“One thing about Gilbert and I is that we do everything together. We go to church together, we play golf together. It’s been an easier journey as both roommates and business partners,” Nkrumah says.
A construction community group of four in Portland, Oregon
Jendayi Brooks-Flemister, 29, and her partner had been looking for a place to buy in the Portland area for a while, but they said they kept running into problems: Either the house was too far from the neighborhood they wanted to live in., or it required too much work that they were not willing to undertake.
“The housing market wasn’t working in our favor. It didn’t seem doable,” Brooks-Flemister says.
Brooks-Flemister’s friends and partners (also a couple) moved to the city at the time and were looking to buy, too. Brooks-Flemister says couples began to wonder: What if they looked at multifamily homes together instead of searching separately?
After searching for months, the foursome found a duplex in their ideal neighborhood with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a courtyard.
“It was as if this magical moment had emerged,” Brooks-Flemister says. “And it would have been cheaper if we had bought the two houses separately.”
The couples bought the house in 2024 for $735,000. The four each own 25% of the property. The group has monthly mortgage payments of $5,700, or $2,850 per household, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Brooks-Flemister says the joint purchase was the best decision they ever made and they have no regrets about it.
“I wish I had thought of this sooner,” Brooks-Flemister says. “The community is single-handedly the biggest part of this and will continue to grow. I can’t wait to see how much our village will grow.”
When purchasing a joint it is best to get everything in writing
Just like with a romantic partner, buying with friends can get complicated.
SirkinLaw APC attorney Andy Sirkin says it’s better to cover your bases before closing the deal, as there may be many unknowns.
Pendelton and Sirkin recommend getting everything in writing before buying with anyone, even close friends.
“I often tell people that they should think of the settlement as a form of insurance,” Sorkin says. “There’s a lot of people out there who don’t have deals. What’s the problem with that? They’re just taking more risks.”
An example of an agreement that joint buyers can execute includes: TIC (Joint Tenancy) agreement. It allows more than one party to have ownership of a property, but if one person dies, ownership passes to his or her estate rather than to the other co-owners. TIC allows each co-owner to choose who inherits property rights in the event of death.
There is also a joint tenancy agreement that requires each co-owner’s interest to pass to the other co-owners upon death.
“If they have a disagreement and they can’t come to an agreement, the cost in terms of the impact on their lives is going to be much worse than if they were strangers because we’re now talking about a very long-standing and important relationship between the parties that could be weakened, deteriorated or perhaps completely ruined,” says Sirkin. “This is far greater than any economic impact that a lack of agreement could have.”
They say Rascoe and Melvin have a joint lease and are working to get other protections in writing.
“Involving lawyers is really about making sure someone else is aware of the deal,” Brooks-Flemister says.
Pendleton says co-purchasing is a here to stay trend and will continue to be a way for people to achieve the American dream of homeownership.
“When you buy a home, you’re buying a tiny piece of the Earth, and there’s only so much to go around. Over time, home values tend to increase, and homeownership gives you the opportunity to start building equity and tap into that wealth-building potential. A lot of people want a piece of that, even if they’re not in the perfect living situation for that to happen,” Pendleton says.
“As long as the barriers to homeownership remain high, we will see people finding new creative ways to make it work for them.”
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