March 6, 2025 • 16 mins
An increasing number of couples are buying a home together prior to getting married. We explore some reasons behind this dynamic the importance of having financial discussions, planning for what-ifs and having a cohabitation agreement in place.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Remax real Estate Insights show
where you get real talk by real agents. Walk to
you by Remas of Southeastern Michigan. Welcome to the Remax
Real Estate Insights podcast. Today's episode is titled put a
Key Ring on It. That is because there is an
increasing number of unmarried couples that are committing to home
(00:20):
ownership before marriage. In fact, nationwide, over five hundred and
fifty five thousand couples made the decision to say yes
to the house before formally saying yes to each other,
and that is a whopping forty six increase over just
ten years ago. I'm your host, Jannette Schneider, and today
I'm going to share with you some of the reasons
(00:43):
behind this dynamic, some of the pros and cons, but
more importantly tips for those that might be looking to
take the step into home ownership together. So let's kind
of start with maybe what's behind this trend. Well, for
many potential younger homeowners, home ownership has become really a
powerful expression of of of a commitment and stability, and
(01:06):
they kind of look at it as a step that
might be considered as something that leads up to marriage.
So that's certainly one factor, let's be honest. Housing affordability
is another. We know that the ability to afford a home,
it has been on the rise between rising home values
between you know, interest rates kind of stubbornly staying in
the sixes right now. You know, housing affordability for some
(01:28):
folks is an issue, and so doing Buying a home
with somebody else, like a partner, certainly may open up
the door to home ownership. Co buying, you know again,
speeds up the process. Maybe you don't have to wait
as long. Combining assets also can potentially lead to a
larger down payment, which could lead to a better loan offer.
(01:49):
There may be some reduced cost I mean not just
the fact that you have one person saving for a home,
you have a couple. But now it's you know, think
about beyond the down payment, You're going to have things like,
you know, maintenance on a home, taxes, insurance and all
the things that come with it. You sharing those expenses
with someone else might make that load a little bit
easier or more realistic. You know again, co buying might
(02:13):
make home ownership just the responsibilities of it. We you know,
a lot of focus goes on the financial side, and
understandably so. But with home ownership comes responsibilities, taking care
of the yard, maintenance, shoveling, you know, all of those
things that comes along with it. And for some folks,
you know, having somebody to share in those responsibilities makes
(02:33):
that seem just maybe a little less daunting. And some
couples look at combining resources to buy a home as
being a factor of timing. And then that, I mean,
home values continue to go up, and a down payment
and a home today may not get you the same
house two or three years from now. I assume I
(02:54):
shouldn't say assume, I expect that home prices are going
to continue to go up for a variety of reasons,
not the least of which is there's just not enough
homes coming on the market. There's more buyers from than
their homes available, and that supply and demand dynamic, unless
something really changes, is going to keep putting pressure on
home values going up. So saying that you're going to
(03:15):
wait and you know, do it two or three or
four years from now, it is very likely that you know,
the home or the neighborhoods that you're looking at are
going to continue to go up in price. So the
down payment you need is going to continue to go up.
So for some folks it's like they understand, if I
can get into this now, if I have the ability
to save and do this now, it's better than waiting
(03:35):
for later. And they look at it as well, do
the house now. There's a financial reason to do this now.
The wedding can come later. And speaking of weddings, that's
another trend is just by and large, marriage as a
whole tends to be happening later in life the for
this generation than it did for previous generations. And so
(03:57):
they get that their money should be working for them,
put it to work in an asset like a house.
And we weren't going to you know, we weren't really
planning to get married until you know, whether it's a
certain age, a certain time in life anyway, and it
just kind of follows that pattern. So there's some very
good reasons, you know, for folks to consider, you know,
doing this, the sharing, the sharing of saving for the
down payment, the sharing of any of the cost of
(04:19):
hone ownership, the sharing and the responsibilities of maintenance and repair, upkeep,
you know, all of that timing knowing that you know,
the sooner I put money in a house, I can
start building my own equity. All of those are definitely
some pros. There's a few cons if you want to
look at it. That you may want to consider is
if your partner, you know, should fall behind or have
(04:42):
an inability to you know, hold up their financial end
of the bargain, it could impact you. It could impact
you in a lot of ways in that you're going
to have to make up their deficit so to your
wallet so to speak. There's a there's an impact, but
it could go beyond that. If we start having missed
mortgage payments, it could impac credit score. So those are
some things you definitely want to you want to think about,
(05:04):
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
when we get into having a cohabitation agreement. Before you
get there, I would say, if you are someone that
is considering buying a house with a partner a significant other,
and this would in many parts also be true if
you just have friends that are doing it. We really
focused this more on you know, partners, as that's where
(05:25):
we definitely see a trend. But the first thing you
want to do is be very very transparent about your
financial situation, about your income, about any debts that you
may have, your credit score, financial goals, if you have
somebody that may have had a hiccup in their background.
The last thing you want is this coming out when
(05:46):
you're sitting down in front of a mortgage or loan officer.
Probably not the best time for that little secret to
come out. It would be much better served in the
privacy of you know, you know, over dinner or at
your current you know, apartment or wherever you're living, to
have that conversation behind closed doors, as they say, and
be very transparent about where you're at in life and
(06:07):
what your goals are, you know, and talk through all
of that before you have another third party, you know,
watching your reaction to that. You also want to talk about,
you know, some what ifs. Nobody can plan for everything
that's going to happen in life, but you know, chances
are if you're a partner ship, you know, you've got
a relationship you maybe you're roughly the same age, Maybe
(06:29):
you're coming into this on fairly equal financial terms, fairly
equal terms as far as what your expectations are for
the future. But you want to talk through to some degree,
maybe before you're sitting in front of an attorney. You
want to talk about, you know, what happens if one
of us loses our job, What happens if one of
(06:49):
us has, you know, a very serious medical condition, or
we're in a car accident and there's some significant medical expenses.
We did not plan on. What if one of you
gets a job offer that is going to take you
out of state, or what if one party gets a
massive promotion and the financial equilibrium is now out of whack.
Somebody is making far more money than the other person.
(07:11):
That may be great overall, but it reminds me of
the Friends episode where you had three of the friends
that were not making as much money as the other. So,
if you watch the show Friends, you had Rachel, Joey,
and Phoebe that weren't making as much money as Ross
Chandler and Monica, and they always wanted to go out
to fancy restaurants and celebrate different things, and the three
that weren't making as much. Finally, it had kind of said,
(07:32):
we can't afford to do this, and we feel like
there's an inequity in this relationship. If this is something
that could happen based on somebody's career choice, or something
like that. You want to talk through some of what
how are we going to handle it if this scenario
should occur. And the reason I recommend that is not
(07:52):
just to maybe mentally get on the same page mentally
talk through some of that, because some of this is
going to come into play in my next suggestion, which
is you want to create a prenup of sorts for
the house or a cohabitation agreement might be. You know
what an attorney would call this is you want to
(08:13):
set out you know, before you go down this road.
And while everything you know, everybody likes each other, everything
is great, we're all in sync on this. We want
to talk through some of life's what ifs, so if
and when it happens, you have a roadmap, and not
only you, but your family knows what your wishes are.
Because while you may think there's two of you in
(08:35):
a relationship, and there are, you likely both have family.
If you're young enough, you probably both have parent or
parents that are out there, and should something happen to you,
what they think you might want or what your parents'
expectations you maybe for the scenario could be very different
than what you and your partner had agreed on. So
(08:55):
what you want to do is you do not want
to necessarily tackle this on your own. Highly recommend that
you reach out to an attorney and draft a cohabitation
agreement that defines the details and things like who is
responsible to pay? What? Is this truly a fifty to
fifty quote unquote union? Is this truly fifty to fifty
everybody's bringing fifty to the mortgage payment, to the insurance,
(09:18):
to the taxes, to home repairs, to anything involved in
this household? Or is it on a different scale? Are
we coming in seventy five, twenty five? Whatever it is,
this should be articulated. You also want to have a
plan in place in the event, maybe it's an unlikely
event that you the partnership doesn't last, the relationship doesn't last,
(09:40):
and you break up. How is this going to be
dealt with? This is one party buy another one out?
Is that an option? Or do you agree that if
this happens, we sell the house and split the proceeds.
There's a variety of options on what you can do,
but you want to have a clear path on that.
And then while you're at the attorney's office and I know,
especially you know the younger you are, the less likely
(10:01):
you are to have a will or in a state,
or a trust or anything like that created. But whatever
you're agreeing to in the cohabitation agreement, it would be
wise and smart to protect yourself and have those type
of stipulations also included in a will or a trust.
And this is going to be very critical. You know,
(10:21):
if forbid, you know, somebody is killed dies unexpectedly, motions
run high. You could have well intentioned family members start
to make life very difficult for the partner that's left behind.
If they feel they're entitled to your proceeds of the house,
or they feel they have a say in what's going
to happen with that property now that you're gone, they
(10:42):
can get these things can get very tricky and quite
ugly if the wishes of the two of you as
partners aren't specifically spelled out, aren't written down, aren't witnessed,
and people know what you wanted. So I can't stress
enough how important this is. Is we recognize that going
(11:03):
to an attorney there's a cost involved, and there are
certainly some people that are going to say, I just
I can't justify that expense. You know, we'll we'll work
it out if something, you know, if something doesn't go right,
we'll figure it out, you know, amongst the two of us,
and that always is your right. I would recommend that
you at least consult with an attorney, you know, try
to get something down that protects all of your interests
(11:25):
on this is just that important. The other thing we
want to think about is how will the property be titled?
Because you have kind of the legal aspect of who's
responsible to pay, what happens if we break up, what
happens if somebody, uh, you know, gets the job and
moves out of state, the other party you know, chooses
(11:47):
not to How are we going to deal with this?
So you've got kind of all of those things uh
tackled if you go to see an attorney. The other
thing to think about is how is the house going
to be titled? Is it going to be titled joint tenancy.
This means there's equal ownership with rights of survivorship. So
if one of the parties were to pass from a
(12:08):
title perspective of the house, the surviving partner would automatically
assume that title to that house. That might work well
if there's equal ownership. Another option is going to be
tenants in common. This might be something to consider if
there's unequal ownership percentages, this would be ideal. If people
are coming into this putting down one party's putting down
(12:29):
more on the down payment, they're making more of the
mortgage payment than the other, This might be a way
that you want to title it. Another option is sole ownership.
Only one person is listed on the title. Now, this
might be because of other legal or tax reasons. This
wouldn't necessarily be the one that most people would default to,
but there could be things that have occurred in someone's life,
(12:52):
maybe a past marriage, you know, maybe there's some other
things going on. Or sole ownership and only one party's
name is the best thing for the two of you
as a partner. But these are you know, there are
pros and cons to all of these, and you definitely
want to be talking to a realtor an attorney, you know,
and make sure you know as the title work is
being done that this is the discussion item of how
(13:12):
do you want this done to best protect your situation. Now,
the other thing we want to talk about is mortgage options,
and of course, you know, unless you're going to be
a cash offer, and you have a big bag of
money in a big bank account where you don't need
to get a loan, You're going at some point going
to go to a lender, and you want to make
sure that you're you know, it's great to do online research,
(13:33):
big proponent of getting educated online as much as I can,
But when it comes to getting a loan, I'm a
huge supporter of reaching out to a local lender face
to face to talk about your specific situation and review
the options that are available to you. And this again
is where now credit scores are going to come out,
employment status, income, anything like that, you want to you know,
(13:57):
you want to be talking to them about. You know,
chances are you're going to go in thinking, well, we're
going to use both of our incomes to get this loan.
And if you both have great credit histories and a
solid you know, job background, you know, having both parties
might you know, qualify you for a little bit higher
you know, higher loan and better rates. But there could
(14:17):
be scenarios where it's to your best interest that you
only get the loan app in one party's name. If
you have one party that has stellar credit, great job history,
you know, a good job right now, they've been at
it for you know, a few years or checking all
the boxes, and you have another party coming to this
that maybe has a little bit, you know of some
challenges in the past. It may be in your best
(14:39):
interest to have the stronger credit score, the stronger financial
party on paper put that loan through in their own name,
because maybe you get a better interest rate on that
loan doing so. But these are all things that you
want to talk to a local lender about before you
decide ultimately what's best for you, because they'll be able
(14:59):
to guide you same thing with if you know, maybe
you'd qualify for a VA loan, if one of the
partners had been in the service, maybe you'd qualify for
a first time home buyer. I mean, there's a lot
of different things you want to talk about there. So
as we've gone through this, hopefully you recognize that there
are definitely, you know, some benefits to buying a home
with a partner with a significant other. But the best
(15:21):
advice that we can give you is be sure you
take the time as you're thinking about this to clarify
the responsibilities financial and otherwise to make sure that everybody's
comfortable going into this. Talk through the what ifs. As
many what ifs as you can think of you want
to talk through ahead of time, can't say enough, Go
to an attorney, get a cohabitation agreement. You want to
(15:43):
protect your rights as a partnership against well meaning family.
You want to protect your rights individually should something happen
to your partner or the relationship, so that you're as
well protected as possible. And it's always best to do
this when everybody's happy and excited before life has the
potential to throw an obstacle in your way. So hopefully
(16:04):
that gives you something to think about. I mean, in
today's world, we're seeing a lot more of this, and
if this is something you're considering, like I said, do
your research, talk, get a good team around you, a
good real estate agent, a good attorney, a good loan officer,
and with the help of your great real estate team,
they can see you through this process well. Thanks to
our loyal listeners. We're really happy that you joined us
(16:26):
today and we look forward to talking to you on
future conversations. We'll chat again soon. We hope you enjoy
today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe, write a review, or
rate the show as it helps us reach more people.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
You are listening to the Remax real Estate Insights show
where you get real talk by real agents. Walk to
you by Remas of Southeastern Michigan. Welcome to the Remax
Real Estate Insights podcast. Today's episode is titled put a
Key Ring on It. That is because there is an
increasing number of unmarried couples that are committing to home
(00:20):
ownership before marriage. In fact, nationwide, over five hundred and
fifty five thousand couples made the decision to say yes
to the house before formally saying yes to each other,
and that is a whopping forty six increase over just
ten years ago. I'm your host, Jannette Schneider, and today
I'm going to share with you some of the reasons
(00:43):
behind this dynamic, some of the pros and cons, but
more importantly tips for those that might be looking to
take the step into home ownership together. So let's kind
of start with maybe what's behind this trend. Well, for
many potential younger homeowners, home ownership has become really a
powerful expression of of of a commitment and stability, and
(01:06):
they kind of look at it as a step that
might be considered as something that leads up to marriage.
So that's certainly one factor, let's be honest. Housing affordability
is another. We know that the ability to afford a home,
it has been on the rise between rising home values
between you know, interest rates kind of stubbornly staying in
the sixes right now. You know, housing affordability for some
(01:28):
folks is an issue, and so doing Buying a home
with somebody else, like a partner, certainly may open up
the door to home ownership. Co buying, you know again,
speeds up the process. Maybe you don't have to wait
as long. Combining assets also can potentially lead to a
larger down payment, which could lead to a better loan offer.
(01:49):
There may be some reduced cost I mean not just
the fact that you have one person saving for a home,
you have a couple. But now it's you know, think
about beyond the down payment, You're going to have things like,
you know, maintenance on a home, taxes, insurance and all
the things that come with it. You sharing those expenses
with someone else might make that load a little bit
easier or more realistic. You know again, co buying might
(02:13):
make home ownership just the responsibilities of it. We you know,
a lot of focus goes on the financial side, and
understandably so. But with home ownership comes responsibilities, taking care
of the yard, maintenance, shoveling, you know, all of those
things that comes along with it. And for some folks,
you know, having somebody to share in those responsibilities makes
(02:33):
that seem just maybe a little less daunting. And some
couples look at combining resources to buy a home as
being a factor of timing. And then that, I mean,
home values continue to go up, and a down payment
and a home today may not get you the same
house two or three years from now. I assume I
(02:54):
shouldn't say assume, I expect that home prices are going
to continue to go up for a variety of reasons,
not the least of which is there's just not enough
homes coming on the market. There's more buyers from than
their homes available, and that supply and demand dynamic, unless
something really changes, is going to keep putting pressure on
home values going up. So saying that you're going to
(03:15):
wait and you know, do it two or three or
four years from now, it is very likely that you know,
the home or the neighborhoods that you're looking at are
going to continue to go up in price. So the
down payment you need is going to continue to go up.
So for some folks it's like they understand, if I
can get into this now, if I have the ability
to save and do this now, it's better than waiting
(03:35):
for later. And they look at it as well, do
the house now. There's a financial reason to do this now.
The wedding can come later. And speaking of weddings, that's
another trend is just by and large, marriage as a
whole tends to be happening later in life the for
this generation than it did for previous generations. And so
(03:57):
they get that their money should be working for them,
put it to work in an asset like a house.
And we weren't going to you know, we weren't really
planning to get married until you know, whether it's a
certain age, a certain time in life anyway, and it
just kind of follows that pattern. So there's some very
good reasons, you know, for folks to consider, you know,
doing this, the sharing, the sharing of saving for the
down payment, the sharing of any of the cost of
(04:19):
hone ownership, the sharing and the responsibilities of maintenance and repair, upkeep,
you know, all of that timing knowing that you know,
the sooner I put money in a house, I can
start building my own equity. All of those are definitely
some pros. There's a few cons if you want to
look at it. That you may want to consider is
if your partner, you know, should fall behind or have
(04:42):
an inability to you know, hold up their financial end
of the bargain, it could impact you. It could impact
you in a lot of ways in that you're going
to have to make up their deficit so to your
wallet so to speak. There's a there's an impact, but
it could go beyond that. If we start having missed
mortgage payments, it could impac credit score. So those are
some things you definitely want to you want to think about,
(05:04):
and we're going to talk a little bit about that
when we get into having a cohabitation agreement. Before you
get there, I would say, if you are someone that
is considering buying a house with a partner a significant other,
and this would in many parts also be true if
you just have friends that are doing it. We really
focused this more on you know, partners, as that's where
(05:25):
we definitely see a trend. But the first thing you
want to do is be very very transparent about your
financial situation, about your income, about any debts that you
may have, your credit score, financial goals, if you have
somebody that may have had a hiccup in their background.
The last thing you want is this coming out when
(05:46):
you're sitting down in front of a mortgage or loan officer.
Probably not the best time for that little secret to
come out. It would be much better served in the
privacy of you know, you know, over dinner or at
your current you know, apartment or wherever you're living, to
have that conversation behind closed doors, as they say, and
be very transparent about where you're at in life and
(06:07):
what your goals are, you know, and talk through all
of that before you have another third party, you know,
watching your reaction to that. You also want to talk about,
you know, some what ifs. Nobody can plan for everything
that's going to happen in life, but you know, chances
are if you're a partner ship, you know, you've got
a relationship you maybe you're roughly the same age, Maybe
(06:29):
you're coming into this on fairly equal financial terms, fairly
equal terms as far as what your expectations are for
the future. But you want to talk through to some degree,
maybe before you're sitting in front of an attorney. You
want to talk about, you know, what happens if one
of us loses our job, What happens if one of
(06:49):
us has, you know, a very serious medical condition, or
we're in a car accident and there's some significant medical expenses.
We did not plan on. What if one of you
gets a job offer that is going to take you
out of state, or what if one party gets a
massive promotion and the financial equilibrium is now out of whack.
Somebody is making far more money than the other person.
(07:11):
That may be great overall, but it reminds me of
the Friends episode where you had three of the friends
that were not making as much money as the other. So,
if you watch the show Friends, you had Rachel, Joey,
and Phoebe that weren't making as much money as Ross
Chandler and Monica, and they always wanted to go out
to fancy restaurants and celebrate different things, and the three
that weren't making as much. Finally, it had kind of said,
(07:32):
we can't afford to do this, and we feel like
there's an inequity in this relationship. If this is something
that could happen based on somebody's career choice, or something
like that. You want to talk through some of what
how are we going to handle it if this scenario
should occur. And the reason I recommend that is not
(07:52):
just to maybe mentally get on the same page mentally
talk through some of that, because some of this is
going to come into play in my next suggestion, which
is you want to create a prenup of sorts for
the house or a cohabitation agreement might be. You know
what an attorney would call this is you want to
(08:13):
set out you know, before you go down this road.
And while everything you know, everybody likes each other, everything
is great, we're all in sync on this. We want
to talk through some of life's what ifs, so if
and when it happens, you have a roadmap, and not
only you, but your family knows what your wishes are.
Because while you may think there's two of you in
(08:35):
a relationship, and there are, you likely both have family.
If you're young enough, you probably both have parent or
parents that are out there, and should something happen to you,
what they think you might want or what your parents'
expectations you maybe for the scenario could be very different
than what you and your partner had agreed on. So
(08:55):
what you want to do is you do not want
to necessarily tackle this on your own. Highly recommend that
you reach out to an attorney and draft a cohabitation
agreement that defines the details and things like who is
responsible to pay? What? Is this truly a fifty to
fifty quote unquote union? Is this truly fifty to fifty
everybody's bringing fifty to the mortgage payment, to the insurance,
(09:18):
to the taxes, to home repairs, to anything involved in
this household? Or is it on a different scale? Are
we coming in seventy five, twenty five? Whatever it is,
this should be articulated. You also want to have a
plan in place in the event, maybe it's an unlikely
event that you the partnership doesn't last, the relationship doesn't last,
(09:40):
and you break up. How is this going to be
dealt with? This is one party buy another one out?
Is that an option? Or do you agree that if
this happens, we sell the house and split the proceeds.
There's a variety of options on what you can do,
but you want to have a clear path on that.
And then while you're at the attorney's office and I know,
especially you know the younger you are, the less likely
(10:01):
you are to have a will or in a state,
or a trust or anything like that created. But whatever
you're agreeing to in the cohabitation agreement, it would be
wise and smart to protect yourself and have those type
of stipulations also included in a will or a trust.
And this is going to be very critical. You know,
(10:21):
if forbid, you know, somebody is killed dies unexpectedly, motions
run high. You could have well intentioned family members start
to make life very difficult for the partner that's left behind.
If they feel they're entitled to your proceeds of the house,
or they feel they have a say in what's going
to happen with that property now that you're gone, they
(10:42):
can get these things can get very tricky and quite
ugly if the wishes of the two of you as
partners aren't specifically spelled out, aren't written down, aren't witnessed,
and people know what you wanted. So I can't stress
enough how important this is. Is we recognize that going
(11:03):
to an attorney there's a cost involved, and there are
certainly some people that are going to say, I just
I can't justify that expense. You know, we'll we'll work
it out if something, you know, if something doesn't go right,
we'll figure it out, you know, amongst the two of us,
and that always is your right. I would recommend that
you at least consult with an attorney, you know, try
to get something down that protects all of your interests
(11:25):
on this is just that important. The other thing we
want to think about is how will the property be titled?
Because you have kind of the legal aspect of who's
responsible to pay, what happens if we break up, what
happens if somebody, uh, you know, gets the job and
moves out of state, the other party you know, chooses
(11:47):
not to How are we going to deal with this?
So you've got kind of all of those things uh
tackled if you go to see an attorney. The other
thing to think about is how is the house going
to be titled? Is it going to be titled joint tenancy.
This means there's equal ownership with rights of survivorship. So
if one of the parties were to pass from a
(12:08):
title perspective of the house, the surviving partner would automatically
assume that title to that house. That might work well
if there's equal ownership. Another option is going to be
tenants in common. This might be something to consider if
there's unequal ownership percentages, this would be ideal. If people
are coming into this putting down one party's putting down
(12:29):
more on the down payment, they're making more of the
mortgage payment than the other, This might be a way
that you want to title it. Another option is sole ownership.
Only one person is listed on the title. Now, this
might be because of other legal or tax reasons. This
wouldn't necessarily be the one that most people would default to,
but there could be things that have occurred in someone's life,
(12:52):
maybe a past marriage, you know, maybe there's some other
things going on. Or sole ownership and only one party's
name is the best thing for the two of you
as a partner. But these are you know, there are
pros and cons to all of these, and you definitely
want to be talking to a realtor an attorney, you know,
and make sure you know as the title work is
being done that this is the discussion item of how
(13:12):
do you want this done to best protect your situation. Now,
the other thing we want to talk about is mortgage options,
and of course, you know, unless you're going to be
a cash offer, and you have a big bag of
money in a big bank account where you don't need
to get a loan, You're going at some point going
to go to a lender, and you want to make
sure that you're you know, it's great to do online research,
(13:33):
big proponent of getting educated online as much as I can,
But when it comes to getting a loan, I'm a
huge supporter of reaching out to a local lender face
to face to talk about your specific situation and review
the options that are available to you. And this again
is where now credit scores are going to come out,
employment status, income, anything like that, you want to you know,
(13:57):
you want to be talking to them about. You know,
chances are you're going to go in thinking, well, we're
going to use both of our incomes to get this loan.
And if you both have great credit histories and a
solid you know, job background, you know, having both parties
might you know, qualify you for a little bit higher
you know, higher loan and better rates. But there could
(14:17):
be scenarios where it's to your best interest that you
only get the loan app in one party's name. If
you have one party that has stellar credit, great job history,
you know, a good job right now, they've been at
it for you know, a few years or checking all
the boxes, and you have another party coming to this
that maybe has a little bit, you know of some
challenges in the past. It may be in your best
(14:39):
interest to have the stronger credit score, the stronger financial
party on paper put that loan through in their own name,
because maybe you get a better interest rate on that
loan doing so. But these are all things that you
want to talk to a local lender about before you
decide ultimately what's best for you, because they'll be able
(14:59):
to guide you same thing with if you know, maybe
you'd qualify for a VA loan, if one of the
partners had been in the service, maybe you'd qualify for
a first time home buyer. I mean, there's a lot
of different things you want to talk about there. So
as we've gone through this, hopefully you recognize that there
are definitely, you know, some benefits to buying a home
with a partner with a significant other. But the best
(15:21):
advice that we can give you is be sure you
take the time as you're thinking about this to clarify
the responsibilities financial and otherwise to make sure that everybody's
comfortable going into this. Talk through the what ifs. As
many what ifs as you can think of you want
to talk through ahead of time, can't say enough, Go
to an attorney, get a cohabitation agreement. You want to
(15:43):
protect your rights as a partnership against well meaning family.
You want to protect your rights individually should something happen
to your partner or the relationship, so that you're as
well protected as possible. And it's always best to do
this when everybody's happy and excited before life has the
potential to throw an obstacle in your way. So hopefully
(16:04):
that gives you something to think about. I mean, in
today's world, we're seeing a lot more of this, and
if this is something you're considering, like I said, do
your research, talk, get a good team around you, a
good real estate agent, a good attorney, a good loan officer,
and with the help of your great real estate team,
they can see you through this process well. Thanks to
our loyal listeners. We're really happy that you joined us
(16:26):
today and we look forward to talking to you on
future conversations. We'll chat again soon. We hope you enjoy
today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe, write a review, or
rate the show as it helps us reach more people.
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