Co-ownership offers hope to those priced out of housing market

Co-ownership is becoming a reality for more Canadians as house prices become increasingly out of reach for some homebuyers.

For many Canadians, their first introduction to home co-ownership might have been through The Golden Girls – the sitcom featuring four friends, living together under one roof while respecting each other’s personal space (for the most part).

Now, home co-ownership is becoming a reality for more Canadians as house prices become increasingly out of reach for some homebuyers. The premise is simple enough – multiple people pool their money to buy a home that would otherwise be unaffordable for them individually. The process can take a number of different forms such as unrelated people buying a home together, different generations of the same family buying a property, or an agreement where there are multiple owners but only one of them actually lives in the home.

Lesli Gaynor said she co-purchased a home with two friends when she was 25 years old, a move that helped her buy her own house several years later. She said her home purchase wouldn’t have been possible without taking that initial co-owned step onto the property ladder.

She’s such a strong believer in co-ownership that she founded GoCo Solutions, a website that educates people on co-ownership and helps facilitate such transactions.

She has seen co-ownerships increasingly gain in popularity in recent years, especially in hot housing markets like in the Greater Toronto Area where home prices are sitting at all-time highs.

“It's not just the vulnerable anymore,” said Gaynor, who has a background in social work, in an interview. “I'm getting approached now from a much wider range of people wanting to do this.