The Case for Buying a House With Friends

Beck: As you were in the initial stages of planning, what were you each hoping for from the arrangement, and what were you afraid of?

Deborah: We did this exercise where we had a bowl in the center of the table. [The prompt was], basically, imagine in a year that you regret this and it really isn’t working. What would lead to that kind of scenario? We all wrote down lots of things, and we put them in this bowl. Then one by one, we went around, pulled them out, and talked about them. There were tears shed during that time.

Honestly, my biggest fear was that TJ or Bethany would regret living with us. I was thinking about the pain of how bad that would feel, if we bought this house with them and they didn’t like living with us.

Luke: I think we’re all always afraid of rejection. The possibility that somebody might purchase a house with you, live with you, and then decide that, actually, “You’re a jerk and I don’t want to live with you,” that was a pretty significant fear. I might’ve also been a little worried around potential conflict. Conflict is hard, at least for me, and I was worried about, what if we have a disagreement and we can’t figure out how to navigate that?

TJ: My biggest fear was the finances of it all, because I was going through a career crisis. I was pretty sure I was going to end up taking a drastic pay cut pretty soon, which ended up being the case. Also, my worst nightmare was that our condo wouldn’t sell, and that actually also happened. So my worst fears came to fruition, and everything’s okay. But it’s been really awesome to go through all of those struggles in [a] community, and that Bethany didn’t have to bear the weight of every one of my stresses [alone].

Bethany Fleming: When we did the exercise, I was pregnant at the time, and my biggest fear was that our baby would be born, and she would be severely allergic to cats and she would just die in the middle of the night. Deborah and Luke had two cats. Also TJ is allergic to cats, and we had never had pets. But our pediatrician assured us that our daughter would be fine.

Deborah: We really have so much fun together, and we have great chemistry between the four of us, but you’ve got to plan for the worst. You don’t want to make this kind of decision lightly. But I would say, 99 percent of the time, we just have a blast together. We share dinner almost every night, at least when people are home, and it feels like I’m in college, living with my roommates. But we’re drinking nicer wine.

Luke: It is so great, just having other people there to share the joys and sorrows of the daily grind, to sit down, eat together, and talk about our days. That’s been a very precious part of the day, for me.

Beck: Nowadays, at the age where traditionally, one would buy a house, a lot of people can’t afford it. Is this something you would’ve been able to do without pooling your finances?