Should a Single Woman Buy a Home With her Boyfriend?

Before I get started talking about should a single woman buy a home with her boyfriend, I want to specifically state this blog is not excluding all other types of partnerships or relationships. Not leaving out the LGBTQ community. I mention a single woman only because I work with a lot of single women. I was once a single woman myself, 5 different times. As such, I bought and sold many homes. My advice to most single women wondering should a single woman buy a home with her boyfriend is, no. Don’t do it.

Now, having thrown that out there, I admit that it worked out for me. I bought a home with my boyfriend, and we’ve been married for almost 20 years now. My situation was fairly iron clad. A solid and strong commitment between the two of us that still exists today. Not to mention, my super powers could see into the future, and I visualized no complications. Further, in retrospect, I made no mistake by excluding past boyfriends from my financial life.

Generally, though, if a person has got to ask should a single woman buy a home with her boyfriend it’s because something is sending out warning signals. Call it intuition or trusting your gut. I’ve had other boyfriends in my life who wanted to buy a home with me, and I refused. Simply not tangling up my financial affairs, including the roof over my head, on a whim.

And not only were some of those breakups a bit messy, I was soooooo relieved I was not in homeownership with them, too. When you are the sole person on title, you can tell everybody else to move out of your house. My firm belief is there is no good reason to share the financial benefit and burden of owing a home with some other person just because you’re together. Especially not if you can afford to buy it without anybody else.

In fact, a past boyfriend paid rent, because there is no free lunch. One-half of my mortgage payment, including taxes and insurance, was far less than if we shared rent for a comparable house, but this guy did not want to pay his fair share. It irked him to no end that I refused to put him on title. He felt he should get a break because I received all of the tax benefits, not him, and I received all of the appreciation. He expected a discount off his share. That’s not a quality I deserve in a partner, so I made him move out.

Just sharing my thoughts about this subject in case another person is questioning the right move. When it’s your money, your credit and your financial situation that allows you the opportunity to buy a home, don’t automatically feel like you have to cut in the love interest in your life. You don’t. And don’t sell your house to move in with your boyfriend. Rent it out.

However, if it’s too late for you and you bought a home together anyway and now want to break up, call me at 916.233.6759. I work with many divorcing couples, too.