The Ultimate Introduction to Co-Owning Real Estate

If you're curious about co-owned real estate or you're considering purchasing co-owned real estate, this introduction is your best bet for learning more.

Co-ownership and co-purchasing are gaining interest as a method to enter the housing market, build equity, and live intentionally with others. In the United Kingdom, there are over 157,000 households leveraging co-ownership! While this is an appealing approach to home buying, it is a little bit more complex than purchasing a home as an individual or family.

But fear not! Our Ultimate Guide to Co-Purchasing Real Estate will help you learn and discover if co-ownership is right for you.

At Husmates, we are here to help you understand the steps needed to make a successful co-ownership real estate purchase. Our team are the leading Canadian co-ownership experts with a wealth of experience in co-ownership real estate, mortgages, and law.

Despite the challenges that may arise, co-owning real estate has many benefits. It can be a way into the housing market for first-time buyers, a method of building equity for retirement, or a means to establish and grow an intentional community. Regardless of your background and motivations, co-ownership is a journey, and we will guide you through it.

As you explore our Ultimate Guide to Co-purchasing a Home, you'll gain the knowledge we've acquired from doing over $100 million in co-ownership sales since 2018. The Guide includes advice, tips, and activities so that you can learn the best way to co-purchase.

We call a group of people (two or more) who desire to make a co-ownership real estate purchase together with a purchasing group. We use this to avoid confusion with terms like “partners” or “partnership.” A purchasing group is not necessarily legally related or made up of family members. For brevity, at times we will also refer to the action of purchasing co-owned real estate as co-purchasing.

— Lesli Gaynor, Co-Founder, Husmates

What Is Co-Ownership?

Co-ownership is a broad term with many different names. You may have heard things like “co-housing,” “co-purchasing,” “co-living,” “co-operative living,” and “co-housing solutions.” These terms cover many different arrangements and include many kinds of housing models. You can learn more about these terms in our Defining Co-Ownership article.

Our definition of co-ownership includes:

1. 2 or more people buying a home
2. Sharing equity and expenses
3. Living in the home and sharing some of the space

Our definition of co-ownership does not include:

1. Secondary properties purchased for investments
2. Large co-housing communities in towers
3. Communes

Co-owners can come from a wide range of backgrounds and demographics, but their desire to share is what we try to bring together.

For simplicity, we will refer to a group of people who desire to make a co-ownership real estate purchase together as a purchasing group. We use this term instead of terms like ‘partners’ or ‘partnerships’ because they are laden with assumptions that may not apply to co-ownership. A purchasing group does not have to be legally related or made up by family. You may also see us interchange the action of purchasing co-owned real estate as co-purchasing.

Our definition of a purchasing group:

• a group of people who desire to make a co-ownership real estate purchase together
• people in a purchasing group can have any type of relationship, including: friends, family, strangers, colleagues, married, polyamorous

What’s in The Ultimate Introduction to Purchasing Co-Owned Real Estate?

1. Introduction to Co-ownership
2. The Benefits of Co-ownership
3. Getting in the Co-ownership Mindset
4. The Five Steps to Co-Owning Real Estate
5. Co-ownership In Action, Case Studies:
   1. The Golden Girls
   2. Multigenerational Magic
   3. The Single Moms Merger