Co-Ownership 101: The Housing Solution for Densification, Sharing & Affordability

In this episode of the Less House More Moola podcast, host Laura interviews Pam Hughes, co-founder of Co-Buy, to discuss the concept of co-buying homes. They explore the challenges and complexities of co-ownership, the importance of financial literacy, and how co-buying can serve as a solution to current housing market issues. Pam shares insights on the co-ownership journey, the necessity of co-ownership agreements, and the benefits of pooling resources to achieve home ownership. The conversation highlights the evolving landscape of home buying, particularly among younger generations and multi-generational households. In this conversation, Pam Hughes discusses the essential elements of co-ownership, emphasizing the importance of transparency and accountability among co-buyers. She outlines the phases of co-ownership, including planning, management, and exit strategies, while addressing the challenges that arise in these arrangements. The discussion highlights the growing trend of community living as a remedy for loneliness and the need for effective communication among co-owners. Additionally, Pam provides insights on how to find the right team of professionals for co-buying and the importance of education and resources for prospective co-owners.

Pam Links

cobuy.io

pam@cobuy.io

Go to thetinyhouseadviser.com

Transcript

Less House More Moola Podcast (00:41)

Well, Pam Hughes, welcome to Less House More Moola podcast. I am so thrilled that you took the time to talk to us about a really important topic that I think is so relevant right now. And that is co-buying. This is another version of how we can live smaller and be more intentional about our square footage. So thank you for joining me.

Pam Hughes (01:04)

Thank you for having me, Laura. I greatly appreciate it. It's always a pleasure to talk to people who are interested to co-buy and co-own a home together and appreciate your getting in contact.

Less House More Moola Podcast (01:17)

Yeah, it's so fun to be out there in like LinkedIn or wherever like searching like who is working on these topics because you run across people that are doing such amazing work in, you know, different ways of sorting out housing and then to just send you a message on LinkedIn and have you respond. was, it was magic.

Pam Hughes (01:39)

Thank you, thank you. Well, think anytime you can find folks who are interested to help spread the word, that's beneficial. Financial literacy is a challenge these days and anything we can do to help people understand that this is a mechanism for helping grow wealth and protect your financial security.

Less House More Moola Podcast (02:08)

Yeah, good. So go ahead and if you would just introduce yourself, you can talk a little bit about your background and history and your personal story and talk about the mission of COBYE, the organization that you co-founded with your son.

Pam Hughes (02:23)

Cool. Well, as you mentioned, I'm a co-founder of Co-Buy in 2016 with my son whose background is, he's a classically trained economist out of University College of London. He came home back in 2015 with the intention to start a business with me. My background is real estate, financial services, construction and consulting and we decided that as kind of a first step in our journey to start a business together, we would try to buy a house together with my husband. My husband is not his biological father, so different surnames and having been a real estate professional for a number of years, decades in fact, we found it extremely challenging to co-buy a home. And we thought, wow, if it's this hard for those of us in professions all around buying and owning homes, we can't imagine what it's like for others. And so, co-buy was born. And when we started, our focus was Pacific Northwest and helping people through the transaction of co-buying.

What we learned is that people needed help throughout the entire life cycle of co-buying. And really the life cycle of co-buying spanned co-buying, co-ownership, the period after you've purchased the home, and then the exit, of course. So that's kind of how we launched the business.

Less House More Moola Podcast (04:16)

So let's break down Co-Buying a little bit in terms of what it is, know, the process, the transaction, the full life cycle and who it's for.

Pam Hughes (04:34)

Great question. So who co-buying is for is essentially anyone who aspires to home ownership. Our vision when we started was to unlock home ownership as an option for anyone who chose to own a home and wealth creation, which the home is the kind of foundation for building wealth in, at least in the United States. And what we found is that a lot of people wanted to own a home and didn't feel like they were in a position to do so. So co-owning is for anyone, two or more people who want to pool their resources in order to purchase and own a home together. That's friends, family, partners. We specifically,think it's perilous for strangers to come together and co-own, but that happens as well. Our orientation is to help those who know, love, and trust one another just because co-buying and co-owning is complex. It's a combination of marriage and a business relationship. And so when you put those two things together, you have a lot of complexity.

Less House More Moola Podcast (05:54)

Yeah, that's so interesting because, I mean, I don't, I don't know the statistics, you know, overall in terms of how many people buy a home singly versus in a, in a romantic couple. But even when you're in a marriage or other romantic relationship, there is that complexity of co-owning an asset, like a home that does turn into a business in a marriage.

And so then when you expand your range of possible co-buyers out, it just points to the fact that anytime two people own a property together, it is a lot more complex than maybe we think. And it's just sort of assumed to be easy in a marriage. And yet at the same time, it isn't always.

Pam Hughes (06:44)

Well, great point, Laura. And in fact, what we found is that the financial, legal, lending circumstances were all built for either a single individual or a married couple. There is no real structure or system that supports the co-ownership of people who aren't married to one another.

About 61 million Americans come in a home today and what we're seeing is about 30 % of purchasers today are people who are not married to one another. And so it's a big shift in our...fabric of our nation and it's one that the systems haven't kind of moved or caught up with today and so it's important that there are pathways that you can follow to get yourself prepared for the journey that is co-buying and co-ownership.

Less House More Moola Podcast (07:50)

Yeah, as I mentioned to you in some of our earlier conversations I've even seen this on the market news that I listen to where young people are coming together to co buy a property and a place where they're working on developing their careers because they view that you know that property is being a you valuable investment for both the roof over their head but also for the long term and so they'll come together as friends in order to buy a property because it's just the most affordable, I guess option for them at the moment doing it singly seems challenging. And I love it for for women, know, young women in particular, because owning a home is, there's a lot to it, you know, in terms of maintaining the property and whatever. And certainly, if you've got your girlfriend along with you can feel a little more confident to tackle things together. And I just I love that option for

Pam Hughes (08:43)

Yeah, yeah, it's great. and yeah, we found that a lot of people want to do it. They don't understand all the things that they need to know. They know there are things that they don't know. And so we found that there are some challenges that people wanna overcome. One is they feel like they need some sort of agreement. And the co-ownership agreement, which I would say most people, about 94 % of the people that come to us, suggest that they need in order to feel comfortable moving forward.

That represents the fact that they've gone through and had the discussions that are necessary in order to make for a successful relationship in co-ownership. It's really not that it, I mean, while it is a legal agreement, it's not that that legal agreement is something that they want to use to take their friend or loved one to court. It's something that represents we've...had the difficult conversations and we've thought through this arrangement and we've come to conclusions of how we'll make decisions jointly and what we'll do in order to prevent disputes or solve in a dispute situation. The co-ownership agreement typically talks about finances, expenses, payments.

It may talk about documentation and record keeping, things are important that we all have awareness of, where do we keep the documents, things like insurance policies and so forth. What are the roles, rights and responsibilities of all the parties into the relationship and...what are the exit strategies and then what are the risks. And one of the things that we've found through the years is that risks, well,

People clearly understand that there are risks associated with co-buying and co-owning. They don't necessarily give the weight to those risks that are warranted. those are becoming a bigger issue as climate change takes effect and people.

discover that they're maybe under protected because they went for the least expensive path instead of the path that protects them when something does occur. So these are all things that people need to address up front and this earlier in the decision making to do to become co-owners the better. So that we've set out to try to solve for.

Less House More Moola Podcast (12:00)

Yeah, it's a reflection, the co-ownership agreement and the fact that people are reaching out to you as a reflection of their intentionality around their decision. It's kind of like couples that come together and maybe sit down and come up with a marital operating agreement or people that work with a financial planner to craft their life, right? Because we can all muddle our way through a thing.

Pam Hughes (12:25)

Right.

Less House More Moola Podcast (12:26)

but it's when we sit down and we kind of have some more intentionality around the structure and the strategy that, you know, maybe protects us from some of the risks and brings in, you know, some outside expertise. And I think it leads to better outcomes probably when there's a little bit more intention in our decisions.

Pam Hughes (12:46)

No doubt. A friend of mine who actually was married said that she and her now ex-husband put together a love letter and that love letter indicated what would they do with their home and other assets in the event that their relationship didn't last. And one might say you're setting yourselves up for...split, but the fact is is that they remain friends today, she said, because of that love letter, and she likened the co-ownership agreement to a love letter. Which, again, kind of like a business,

Less House More Moola Podcast (13:28)

Sure. So let's talk about the overall, you know, broader conditions that, you know, the buyers are facing this these days. I'm sure that in your time, you know, creating this business and your offerings to the public, you have seen a shift in demand. What do you say to record high housing prices and interest rates?

Where do you see co-ownership really solving a problem in the in current conditions that we're in?

Pam Hughes (14:03)

Well, that's a great question. So to your point, pricing has outstripped the growth in wages over the past several decades. And that's put a lot of people on the sidelines for purchasing a home that may otherwise be looking to buy. Co-ownership is kind of..been a life hack for enabling people to pool resources and buy something for financial reasons. But we also find that there is a big social element to that with a lot of especially young people starting their careers, oftentimes in major metropolitan areas where housing tends to be even more expensive than it is across the nation. we see that this is a mechanism, co-buying is a mechanism for getting to that down payment quicker, getting a bigger place than you might otherwise be able to afford, and also having a safety network built in. If people wanna have children and sharing responsibility for taking care of those kids or what have you. Also, The costs have not only gone up for the first time homebuyer, but they've also gone up for builders. So builders are in a position where they can't make money unless they put the biggest structure possible on a piece of land. And that piece of land might be a 5,000 square foot lot. The fact is they're going to build the biggest property that they can to make it pencil. That property is going to be priced above a first-time homebuyers capabilities to purchase. So this is a means to expand the inventory, the options available to a first-time homebuyer. It also frankly is a mechanism for not continuing to build so many homes. Ecologically, think that especially the younger people have had a pretty significant interest in protecting the planet Earth and densification is a means for overcoming the need to continue to build the more smaller homes in a sprawling territory. So this solves for social elements, it solves for financial elements, it solves for ecological elements, and it's a pretty simple densification solution that doesn't require policy changes in order to effect. And so a lot of people, and the whole, you know, light being shown on the value of a sharing economy has made this a great time for co-buying. And so you see more people willing and interested to pursue that path.

It doesn't have to be forever and doesn't have, co-buyers don't have to all occupy the property together. The key thing is that they're combining resources to purchase. And so one of the things that we see is a lot of scenarios where parents are helping kids to purchase or kids are helping their elderly parents purchase or combining resources to downsize, up-size, or right-size.

The key thing about co-buying is that ultimately all of those who are on the title are co-owners. That doesn't necessarily mean everybody is on the mortgage if there is one. Most co-buyers have a mortgage, but not everyone necessarily has to be on the mortgage. The one thing caveat that I'll throw out is that, in fact, I just had a group the other day where a person said, I have an 800 score, so I'm gonna be the person on the mortgage, and the other two friends are going to pitch in and be on title. the challenge in that circumstance is that they have no liability that one individual with a high credit score is bearing all the risk associated with that liability. The others who are on title, which means they have a portion of ownership, but they don't have an offsetting

means that one person was on the hook for the entire repayment of the loan, whereas if they're sharing in the mortgage, they're sharing in the risk of payment. In fact, everyone's joint and severally liable who's on the mortgage, which the reverse of that is parents or whomever helping somebody else buy a home get on the mortgage but don't get on title. Now they're bearing the risk of repayment or credit damage if the people on the mortgage don't make the payments timely and consistently. And they don't have the benefit of the ownership. So it's really important to...balance the asset liability circumstance and understand the impacts. So that means that as you go through your planning for a co-buy, you want to think about who's going to be on the mortgage if you have one essentially roles, rights and responsibilities, economic impacts, who's doing what, what role is each party playing and how does, what implications does that have for us as co-owners down the line? That's really important and I guess if there were one key takeaway, it's kind of know before you go, you know, understand who's owning what and how that, at dissolution, how that gets distributed and what your expectations are. Make sure that those are all aligned in the process. Does that make sense?

Less House More Moola Podcast (20:52)

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that those are some great scenarios that you pointed out where, you know, if that 800 credit score friend carries the entire mortgage, carries the entire responsibility of repaying for the asset, then the other friends have joint ownership. So they have the value, a division or a portion of the value, but not the portion of the responsibility.

And if they have a lower credit score, by the way, is the person with the highest credit score supposed to just trust the people with the lower credit score to show up with some sort of payments? They're getting kind of a pass when it comes to responsibility there, which is kind of interesting. So great that you're pointing out some of these pitfalls to people and yet...

Going back to what you were saying earlier, you are so right about the densification piece, right? We hear a lot of calls for densification, but the reality is we have this suburban single-family home model that is really significantly written into zoning rules. And so a lot of shift would have to happen with decision-makers and policymakers and jurisdictions around changing zoning and people don't necessarily go out and cheer for, you know, multifamily housing as much as perhaps we would like. And so how do you create multifamily housing from single family housing? You have multiple family units purchasing together. It is like the ultimate hack for that.

Pam Hughes (22:34)

It is, isn't it? yeah. And ADUs are becoming, accessory dwelling units are becoming more more common. And some states have actually kind of put in policy or land use regulations that permit for that more freely. So that scenario is one that we see a lot of where people have a home primary of residence that has at least one ADU on the property and allows for cohabitation in a more private and separate way if people prefer that. But you're right, just densification through combining households within one big McMansion is another alternative that works well.

Less House More Moola Podcast (24:14)

Yeah. And those ADUs are in some places they're allowing ADUs to be parsed off. But in a lot of places, the ADU is still part of the single family home from a ownership and a title perspective. And so getting multiple families to have some equity in that requires a co-buying agreement when that ADU is not split off as a separate title. And

Pam Hughes (24:22)

Yes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (24:44)

As I was mentioning earlier, like people can sort of muddle their way through this, sort of multifamily set up. hear oftentimes of people say finishing out a basement or another portion of a house and renting it out. And, and that's great, right? Creating more housing and maybe more affordable housing and splitting the cost. But then the person who's renting is not getting any ownership they're not getting any wealth creation, they're not getting any equity in that property. And that's why co-buying is, such an important solution for where people that, are stuck in that rental environment can start to build some equity if they can find a property that they can be co-owner on rather than renter.

Pam Hughes (25:31)

Yes, great, great point. And one of the big opportunities that I see and frankly think maybe a little bit underused by multi-generational households is, you know, the elderly parents who, or parent who owns a large house is maybe house rich and income poor, relatively speaking, and wants to stay in that home that they've lived in for 30 plus years, but...is getting priced out with tax, you know the appreciation in tax costs and insurance costs in particular and so forth. Those individuals have a great opportunity to either make an ADU of a basement or what have you and bring in their family, extended family members, whether it's their own kids who are first time home buyers or ready to be home first time home buyers or somebody else that they know, love and trust. It's a great opportunity to have them purchase buy in, if you will, and create an opportunity for a younger generation to start their household and build some equity and so forth. buying doesn't have to be forever. It oftentimes is, we call it a time-bound event, something where you go in saying, okay, we're doing this for five years because we wanna be able to some wealth, build a nest egg that we can parlay into our own home.

And we've seen people do that and parlay the next home into another co-ownership, but maintain ownership in the last home or what have you, or just ride the property ladder up in appreciation.

That's a, it's a great way to put existing inventory to work, but it's also a great way to keep the wealth building and security and so forth stable and growing.

Less House More Moola Podcast (27:57)

Yeah, it's so interesting, such an interesting time, for these housing challenges. And there's just so many ways that co-ownership can, can use the conditions that we have to benefit, especially families coming back together to your point, lots of, lots of sandwich generation people, folks like me, Gen X that are, considering, I need to start increasing my the possibility of providing some support or of one sort or another to my family. Plus, you know, there's kids not quite off. So we've got the multi-generational squeezes going on. and so, using the, the existing homes that are out there and for the person that's in the larger home, not to have to pick up and move, sort of streamlines their

Pam Hughes (28:31)

Yes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (28:44)

process through life, their journey through life and just so many interesting, like we could talk about so many different scenarios where this makes sense. So let's talk a little bit about the kind of the arc of the co-ownership journey. Like what are the phases of that? What are the some of the challenges in those phases? Because it's, complex to your earlier point when you have that relationship going on with people that are married or not married, right in relationship in another way or not like that co ownership journey is an interesting multi step process.

Pam Hughes (29:24)

It is and I think I mentioned earlier that co-buying is just the first phase and it's the one that we started our business on and quickly learned that co-buying is more than just the purchase.

The co-buying phase starts with what we call the aspiration of co-ownership. And that is when folks come together with the notion that this is an idea that they're willing and interested to explore. And during that phase, which we found could last anywhere from a few months to a few years, we literally had people, we call it incubating on our site for sometimes years. And during that phase, you're thinking, okay, are we the right group of people to come together and to live together? It works well when you co-buy with people that you already have lived with at some point, maybe when you went to school or maybe you're renting together right now or maybe your partners, what have you. It's just...

it's helpful to kind of understand all the idiosyncrasies in people. We say that our values as a company are transparency, accessibility, credibility, and accountability. And the two that I think are super important for co-buyers are transparency and accountability. And so in our in the roadmap that we've put together for co-buyers, kind of try to highlight that and make that apparent to the parties involved so that, one, if they're not willing to be transparent with one another, then they should probably learn that upfront and decide that maybe this isn't the best path for them. And that maintaining transparency throughout is going to be vital in the success of the co-ownership arrangement. Accountability kind of comes down to the finances, payments, expenses, as well as the roles, rights, and responsibilities. Typically, someone's taking the lead on the...duty to ensure that all the accounts are funded properly and that payments are being made timely and that insurance is kept up to date and that if there's a repair or maintenance required that that's being addressed and decisions are being made that make sense and that you have some mechanism for deciding what is a repair or a maintenance and what is an improvement to a property. So those are all elements that ideally are part of the planning phase for co-buying and it's interesting because some people like I said spend years incubating to go through the process of thinking through those things. Others just dive in and in fact we have seen a lot of people who have foregone all the planning and gotten into the relationship and then decided, wow, we didn't realize how really significant all this information, all these elements are and each of us thinks a little differently and we really need a means for talking about the what ifs. And so you've got that co-buy planning and structuring, and then you've got co-ownership, which really starts once you've gotten under contract to purchase a property, or in some cases to buy into a property if it's a property that one of the co-owners already owns. Co-ownership starts the actual management of...all of the things, the finances, expenses, you payments, roles, rights and responsibilities, documentation and record keeping and so forth.

That phase can last anywhere from, you we've seen as little as two years and we've seen people who intend to go for 30 years. We haven't been around long enough to see the 30 years, but we've seen people. I actually personally am involved in a co-ownership that's been going on for about 30 years without a co-ownership agreement, by the way, unfortunately. And that's a whole nother podcast and story. But anyway.

So there's that co-ownership phase and then there's a third phase which is really important and again we learned this early in our process that most people in the beginning when we started Co-Buy didn't contemplate was the exit and the exit 100 % is going to happen through death, divorce, transfer, loss, dissolution of some sort. It's always going to happen. It's a matter of is it planned and do you know the plan, not whether or not it's going to happen. So that's the third phase of co-ownership and a really important one.

So that's kind of the arc of co-ownership from our perspective.

Less House More Moola Podcast (35:34)

And so we've talked about how, people come together, maybe they don't know each other quite that well. certainly understanding, who's going to be, who's going to be the organized one with the, with the tax records and who's going to make sure that the payments, those are all sort of logistical, who's the organized one of the couple or the group in that co-ownership. But what are some of the other challenges that, co-owners face when they're jointly owning property.

Pam Hughes (36:06)

Great question. I think, again, it's first and foremost having the discussion. It's really, it's difficult to think through all the what ifs and then it's even more difficult to have the conversations around those and make decisions about what if. Especially if you can't have a conversation that says, what if one of us gets an addiction. What if one of us has a legal issue, maybe because of a business or something that has, it's not a fault of our own or is. How do we handle those circumstances? These things, including things like a divorce within a party in the co-ownership, a birth, a new relationship.

These things can be difficult to anticipate and even more difficult to talk about upfront, and yet they're so vital. And again, that's one of the reasons we developed our co-owner OS, our tool, is it...

It is a mechanism for sterilizing that decision and enabling people to have it. It forces people to have, they at least have to consider the question and whether or not they want to answer it and make it a part of their co-ownership agreement. And we find that most people just do. They just include everything and say, you this is how we'd handle this if that event occurred. If you don't, use a tool like ours, then a trusted advisor, that could be your CFP, could be an accountant or an attorney, whomever, somebody external to you who's willing and able to have the discussion with you to extract the information and kind of force the decision is really important. What if someone becomes disabled and can't work any longer? What happens in you as a group decide how are we going to provision for these things? Do we want to provision for these things?

Less House More Moola Podcast (38:36)

Right? Yeah. And that, and so many of those complexities are about the exit too, right? What if one of us wants out because we've got to move for a job or what if one of us, you know, passes away or what, you know, like all of those exit questions are, are really important too. mean, essentially the challenges are about life happening.

Pam Hughes (38:42)

Right. Yep. Life happens, right? And the pandemic actually drove that home and it shifted. It's interesting because that shifted people's willingness and maybe inclination to start to consider risks. And now talking about death is a little more routine. The possibility of someone dying, even a young person dying has become more real to a lot of people.

And so they, people tend to be much more willing and interested to have those discussions today. Climate change, I think, is another thing that has prompted the willingness and interest to have discussions surrounding the kind of unthinkable events like the house, know, sliding off a hill or being burnt by fire or that sort of thing.

Less House More Moola Podcast (39:59)

Yeah, and it's interesting because it's kind of like a reharnessing of our, the way that we lived in village, right? And the way that we took care of each other, you brought up this community element a little bit earlier. And I think that for many folks, this idea of buying a property with your friends and, you know, living together and being able to support each other is, is kind of a...

Pam Hughes (40:07)

Yes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (40:22)

really attractive notion right now. so maybe all of your provisions for all of your what we've been referring to as risks, right, which are life happening, aren't all about, well, if you you know, something bad happens to you, we're gonna, you're gonna sell your ownership to us, and we're gonna replace you, maybe it's more about an opportunity to have conversation around how do we intend to support each other in this community living arrangement.

Pam Hughes (40:32)

Right. Right. Exactly. Yes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (40:50)

And what does that look like? And what a beautiful thing for folks that, feel so isolated and the single family at home can be very isolating and the world that we live in can be very isolating. What a beautiful thing to be able to have those open and honest conversations. Hey, if I was to shatter my ankle on a ladder, you're gonna, you know, be there for me and help me, support me through that healing process so that we can go on in this arrangement that we have created and how beautiful to know that there are people that have your back.

Pam Hughes (41:21)

That is so true and interesting because you're right, co-owning has been going on since the beginning of time and living in village, if you will, but also just owning property with friends or family has just, it's been a natural occurrence and we've round about the 50s, I think we started moving away from that to more isolated, single family existence with the nuclear family. And now we're seeing that shifted and more than 50 % of people do not live in a nuclear household today. this is a great remedy for combating loneliness and really helping one another through all phases of life, both trauma and celebration. So I believe, obviously, that it's a great solution for a whole host of remedies, for a whole host of ailments.

Less House More Moola Podcast (42:38)

Yeah. So if someone is, starting to approach this transaction, maybe they, have some folks that they're interested in co-buying property, they've been talking about, they've seen all the memes on Instagram that says, hey, let's just get together and buy a thing together. What are questions that they should ask a realtor that maybe they're talking to and a lender? Like how do they find good team members for this transaction?

Pam Hughes (43:09)

Finding good team members, I think, is vital.

I think it's also important to understand that your real estate agent and your lenders, generally speaking, are salespeople. so their interests oftentimes aren't aligned with yours as a more complex buying group. And if you live in an area where the competition for purchases is significant, as it's been for less, you know couple decades in a lot of major metropolitan areas, then your real estate agent and lender are probably going to be very busy with transactions that can happen pretty quickly and easily, relatively speaking. And because they're salespeople, they tend to be driven by helping those circumstances that are simpler for them. So I think it's really important to find out how many people have you helped that are not just a married couple? So they're co-owners, not just a married couple. Very different circumstance. When you ask that question and someone says, I've done a lot of that, see if you can actually talk to some of those people and see what the willingness is of that lender or real estate agent to provide you with a reference that you can talk to and discover how things went. The other thing is that if that agent or lender tells you that it was it's no different than a married couple. I think that's an indication that either they weren't really involved with the intricacies of that transaction from a co-buyers perspective. And that can be problematic. For the reasons that we discussed earlier about the asset liability matching, you want to make sure that your team of professionals each who has their own lane that they're in. And a lot of people kind of think a real estate agent, a lender, maybe even an attorney or what have you that's involved, maybe involved in your process has a broad view of the entirety of a real estate transaction that is not the case. Each of them knows and understands their lane, their particular siloed area of expertise, generally speaking, and is guided by their mission to accomplish that element of the relationship. So what they may not do if they're not a cohesive group, which oftentimes they're not, oftentimes you as the buyers have selected these individuals individually,

then the coordination of who's on the mortgage, who's on title, can fall through the cracks. And if someone is not charged with watching that, nobody is watching that for you. So it's important that you either know yourselves and understand, you know, the asset liability match that you intend and that that's actually occurring or that these folks know and understand that and can make sure that your expectations are met and your requirements are in fact what happens. Because we see and hear people come to us 10 years into a co-ownership that, you know. we had no involvement with, they didn't have a plan and they say, oh gosh, this relationship is coming apart, it's time for us to go our separate ways. I've been paying a portion of the mortgage over the last decade and I just learned I'm not on title. Well, you've been a renter and...You know, I don't know, we weren't there to know who did what, but for whatever reason, this person didn't understand that they weren't on title or they weren't on the mortgage or what have you. And now it's a remedial circumstance. And the only thing you can do is either walk away and consider that I made a mistake and I was a renter or Litigate and neither is a good option.

So making sure that you select the right folks and or having a good understanding yourself of what it is you're trying to accomplish and making sure that that is what you attend is valuable. And I would say get educated. We have a free course on our site, cobuy.io for co-buyers.

We actually used to sell that and so many people were downloading it and sharing it anyway. We decided let's just make it free because it's so important and it's worth the time. This is likely going to be one of the biggest investments you make in your life and it certainly can help you as a jumping off point for building wealth and your assets. So it's worth the time to get educated yourself.

Less House More Moola Podcast (49:51)

Yeah, I think that is a great point because we find so many areas of life where we have to be our own advocate. And this is another one where you have to know enough yourself to make sure that your wishes are carried through the entire transaction and that nothing gets dropped through the cracks. certainly have been through quite a few, real estate transactions in the last, several years and

Pam Hughes (49:58)

Yes.

Less House More Moola Podcast (50:20)

I was the one on top of the things. I was the one with the folder with all the files. I was the one, with the goal in mind. And certainly, those transactional professionals are hugely important, but you have to be in charge of your own outcome. So I love that you have that course for free, which is a great segue into talk a little bit more about your your tool, what you're offering, who it's for, and kind of what people can find at cobuy.io.

Pam Hughes (50:51)

Thank you. So we are presently in beta on a co-owner OS. That is an app. It is in a subscription based pricing model. It presently addresses two to four co-owners. We are iterating it to include co-buyers. So expect that soon. But right now, You can sign up for the beta at a discount at cobuy.io. There's a join the beta button at the upper right hand corner of the site. And if you're interested, you can go there and do that. And if you're two to four folks and presently co-own a home or are under contract to own a home, we can take you into the beta and it's the subscription. The is based on the group size. So it's a per person, per month charge that's charged annually. So it's annualized and paid by the first person that signs up from the group. Typically the first person that signs up from a group is the Laura of the group. We call them the group leader internally. And it turns out in our co-buy model, that person is typically the one who's kind of guiding the process. That can shift over time, but oftentimes the first person to kind of reach out and start the process is the group leader.

If you're in the co-buying phase, I strongly urge you to check out the cobuy.io / course where the free course is. You can see a table of contents. If you want to skip through whatever elements you feel like you know enough about, you can do that. But it's a truly valuable guide to becoming a co-owner and I strongly urge you at a minimum to do that. The other thing I would say is while it's important for you to know the elements of asset liability matching and all the things we've discussed today about co-buying and co-owning a home, if you have advisors along your your path, it's helpful to get them on board as well. And some advisors know elements of what we talk about in our course and in our app. But and they have other expertise that they can bring to the table, but it's helpful for them to have a view into this arrangement, you're entering into, because it does have a significant impact on your personal balance sheet and who owns what and what taxes is each party going to pay and what responsibilities financially each party has. So bring them along in your journey as well. I think that's an important thing.

Less House More Moola Podcast (54:22)

Yeah, because like the real estate professionals and the lending professionals, your tax professional, your financial planner may not be really understanding what all the implications are of a co-ownership arrangement and so helping to educate them or you know steer them in the right direction is probably important to get an appropriate planning element or tax tax preparation all the things because co-ownership of a property touches all areas of your life in the same way as singly owning a property would.

Pam Hughes (54:58)

Exactly, and they can add things that maybe you haven't thought about or we haven't thought about or that are germane because of your unique circumstance. So it's helpful for them to have a view on this arrangement.

Less House More Moola Podcast (55:16)

Yeah, good. Well, Pam, this has been such a great conversation. I love all of the aspects that we covered in terms of co-buying being a beautiful solution at this moment in time and solving a lot of problems and making use of our current environment. It's hard sometimes to find silver linings in the current housing conditions. So I'm super excited that we're able to present this as, one sort of win-win across the board.

Pam Hughes (55:39)

It is.

Less House More Moola Podcast (55:46)

Thank you for joining me today. If listeners want to check out the resources or get in touch with you, how do they do that?

Pam Hughes (55:53)

I'm at pam @ cobuy.io and you can also hit us up at team at cobuy.io and my co-founder is happy to respond as well. And you have our website so we'd be happy to help any way we can. Thank you Laura, I appreciate you having me.

Less House More Moola Podcast (56:17)

Yeah, I'll put all those links in the show notes. So definitely consider co buying as one of your, your solutions and thank you Pam so much for being here.

Pam Hughes (56:29)

Thank you for having me again.