While homeownership is traditionally seen as a key milestone, for many millennials and Gen Z, the dream of owning a home seems increasingly out of reach. A 2025 survey by Bankrate revealed that 22% of millennial buyers couldn’t find an affordable property between 2020 and 2025, leading them to abandon their goal. This was the highest rate among all generations, with 17% of Gen Xers and 12% of Gen Zers and baby boomers giving up.
The challenges are significant, including high mortgage rates and limited housing supply. Amanda Pendleton, a home trends expert at Zillow, notes that prospective buyers must be creative due to two main obstacles: saving for a down payment and fluctuating interest rates. As a result, more young people are turning to unconventional methods like “co-buying” with friends.
“Co-buying wasn’t common a decade ago. It’s a response to the affordability crisis,” Pendleton explains. While co-buying has become a viable option for some, it’s not suitable for everyone. Most buyers still follow traditional paths, with 52% co-buying with a spouse or partner and 8% with a relative. In 2023, 14% of buyers co-purchased with a friend, but this dropped to 5% in 2025.
Pendleton suggests that the decline in co-buying is partly due to stabilized rent prices and higher mortgage rates compared to pre-pandemic levels. “The barrier to entry for homeownership is much higher now. You need to stay in your home longer to make the purchase cost-effective,” she says. The idea of buying with a friend may sound appealing for a few years, but the long-term commitment can make it less desirable.
Millennials are the largest generation sharing homes with non-relatives. In expensive cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., several pairs of friends have turned to co-buying as a solution. Similarly, in Portland, Oregon, couples have found it to be the most achievable path to homeownership.
Single moms creating a village in Washington, D.C.
Ayesha Rascoe, 40, and Jasmin Melvin, 39, have been friends for over 15 years. In early 2025, both women, who work as journalists in the D.C. area, found themselves divorced and looking for new places to live. They decided to buy a home together, forming what they call a “village.”
“We weren’t first-time homebuyers,” Rascoe says. “For us, the bigger thing was to have the village,” adds Melvin. The pair bought a five-bedroom, four-bathroom house for $905,000. They made a 15% down payment of $133,015 and split the cost 60/40. They signed a 30-year mortgage and divide the monthly payment of over $6,000 accordingly.
To protect themselves, the friends entered into a joint tenancy agreement, meaning each owns 100% of the home. “If something were to happen to one of us, the other person will then solely own the home,” Melvin explains. “We had to make that decision early on.” Rascoe adds, “It’s untraditional, but you take much bigger risks when you’re falling in love and getting married to someone you’ve known for maybe three or four years.”
Buying the house together has helped the women create a village, and they consider themselves platonic co-parents. “We are raising our kids together. We’re partners in that and we are taking care of all five of these kids. We’re in it together,” Rascoe says.
Friends investing in themselves in New York City
Gilbert Nyantakyi and Kwame Nkrumah, both 28, realized they couldn’t afford to buy a place in New York City individually. They decided to co-buy a property together. Both work in finance and tech in the city and have been friends for 18 years. They consider themselves brothers and have always shared an interest in real estate.
When they started their home search, they wanted to buy a property with multiple units so they could live in one and rent out the others. Initially, they looked outside New York City, but after touring properties in Newark, Union City, and Jersey City, they realized the markets were appreciating. They decided to return to their home city.
In 2023, after a months-long process, the two bought a three-family home in the Bronx for $730,000. Nyantakyi qualified for a Federal Housing Administration loan, allowing them to make a minimum down payment of 3.5% or $25,550. They live in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, and use rental income from the other two apartments to pay the mortgage and split the remaining amount equally.
Nyantakyi says, “From the very start, we knew this investment would yield the most return after we both move out. If life happens, for example, Kwame gets married, I get married, and for one reason or another, we have to move out, that’s when the real investment starts.”
Nkrumah adds, “Me and Gilbert do everything together. We go to church together, play golf together. It’s been easier being roommates as well as business partners.”
A group of four building community in Portland, Oregon
Jendayi Brooks-Flemister, 29, and their partner had been searching for a place to buy in the Portland area but kept facing challenges. The houses were either too far from their desired neighborhood or needed too much work. Friends of Brooks-Flemister and their partner, also a couple, moved to the city around the same time and were looking to buy as well.
The couples began considering buying a multifamily home together. After months of searching, they found a duplex with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a yard in their ideal neighborhood. “It was kind of like this magical moment had appeared,” Brooks-Flemister says. “And it would have been cheaper than if we had bought two homes separately.”
In 2024, the couples bought the house for $735,000. Each of the four owns 25% of the property. The group has a monthly mortgage payment of $5,700 or $2,850 per household.
Brooks-Flemister says co-buying was the best decision they’ve made and they don’t have any regrets. “I wish I had thought about it sooner. The community alone is the biggest piece of all of it, and it’s going to keep growing. I can’t wait to see how big our village gets.”
When co-buying, it’s best to get everything in writing
Just like with a romantic partner, co-buying with friends can get complicated. Andy Sirkin, an attorney at SirkinLaw APC, advises that since there are many unknowns, it’s better to cover your bases before closing the deal.
Pendleton and Sirkin both recommend getting everything in writing before co-buying with anyone, even close friends. “I often tell people that they should think of the agreement as a form of insurance,” Sirkin says. “There’s a lot of people without agreements. What’s the problem with that? Well, they’re just taking more risk.”
An example of an agreement co-buyers can put in place is a TIC (Tenancy in Common) agreement. It allows multiple parties to have ownership in a property, but if one dies, the ownership transfers to their estate and not the other co-owners. A TIC allows each co-owner to choose who will inherit their ownership interest upon death.
There is also a joint tenancy agreement, which requires each co-owner’s interest to pass to the other co-owners upon death.
“If they ever do have a conflict and don’t have an agreement, the cost of that in terms of the impact on their lives is going to be much worse than if they were strangers because now we’re talking about a very long-standing and important relationship between the parties that could get undermined or disrupted or maybe ruined altogether,” Sirkin says. “That’s much bigger than any economic impact that the lack of agreement might have.”
Rascoe and Melvin have a joint tenancy agreement in place and are working on getting other protections in writing as well. “Getting lawyers involved is genuinely just to make sure that someone else is aware of the agreement,” Brooks-Flemister says.
Co-buying is a trend that is here to stay and will continue to be a way for people to achieve the American dream of homeownership, Pendleton says. “When you’re buying a home, you’re buying a tiny piece of Earth and there’s only so much of that to go around. Over time, home values do tend to rise, and homeownership allows you the opportunity to start building equity and to take advantage of that wealth-building potential. A lot of people want a piece of that even if they may not be in the perfect state of life for that to happen.”
“As long as the barriers to entry of homeownership remain high, I think we’re going to see people come up with these new creative ways to make it work for them.”
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