Hello,

Has anyone here, considered house sharing before? Before you think I'm a nut, there's an entire site dedicated to single parents house sharing - > http://www.coabode.com/

I'm bringing it up because I'm buying a house this Summer, mostly to move to a better school district. It looks like I'm able to put about 20% down on a house in Medford. If there was another single parent looking to buy a house this Summer, however, I'd much rather combine down payments to get a house in Arlington or Belmont or etc. Even if we put 40% down on a house in a cheaper area, I'm sure that I'd enjoy paying a smaller mortgage each month.

BTW, has anyone else noticed how fantastic the Mass Dept of Education web site is for researching school districts? 74% of their 10th Graders got Advanced on their Math MCAS? That's so sick:
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/home.asp?mode=o&view=tst&m...2007&ot=5&o=127&so=0

Six months would be a pretty short time to get to know someone well enough for this type of an arrangement, but credit report and criminal history checks do a lot to quickly give confidence in a person. There's so many benefits beyond the financial ones too. I've written about it before, so I'll link instead of writing it again -> http://singlefamilyvoices.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2921033691/m/7341032212

Later,
Bobby

Hey bobby good to see you around again

Me and my girl were talking about getting a place after she gets out of boot in july

Not sure about metro boston

but we were thinking of getting a duplex nothing to wild just a 2 family and renting one side to cut the monthly payments.

only real issue is you never really know who you are going to get

Heh...well, your girl's probably a more reliable house buying partner than a stranger on the Internet. Congrats about buying though. It's a great time to buy, and it's hard to go wrong with two families.

Sharing a house sounds like it'd make sense for me, but I dunno the best way to find a person to do it with. Random Internet ads are unlikely to work. Maybe I should take out a page in the Globe?

Oh, if only I lived in Boston...

These folks are in NJ but I wonder if they wouldn't know of a service in Mass?

http://www.womensrights.org/shared_housing.htm

Let's see this one is for Texas....

http://www.sharedhousing.org/index.html

I'm gonna keep editing and posting links as I find them and cut and paste into a new thread for researchers on the topic. But for now...I'm posting them in case you want to email any of them to see if they know of an agency in your area...

CA
http://www.ccsj.org/services/housing/shared_housing.html
http://www.echofairhousing.org/programs.html
Oregon
http://www.emoregon.org/shared_housing_news.php

Minnesota
http://www.commonbond.org/
(actually this link has tons of housing resources in Minnesota but the above seemed to be the only house share http://www.housinglink.org/Links%20Library.htm#providers )

Florida
http://www.homeshareprogram.org/

Washington
http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/services/assist/housing/shel...aredHousing_info.htm
http://www.shstac-pc.com/

Vermont
http://dail.vermont.gov/dail-programs/dail-programs-pro...oviders-default-page


Pennsylvania

Shared Housing Resource Center, Inc.
6344 Greene Street
Philadelphia, PA 19144
215-848-1220

I could keep going but I'm supposed to be doing my schoolwork and I've been posting this for an hour. LOL

Holy ****, Blindsky, you've been busy! Thanks for the research! I'll go through the links tonight, and see if some of them might be able to point me to a resource in Mass.

I gotta say though, that my requirements are pretty high this time (sorry missabb ). This time I'm hoping to find someone to help me afford a house that I couldn't afford on my own. That means they'll need to come with ~$50k for a down payment, and good enough credit/income to pay half of a $500k mortgage.

I'll probably fail in this goal, and go find a place in a more reasonably priced neighborhood, but how can I ignore a place like this? (hopefully the link works; I needed a login for that site). I linked to the school reports for Belmont before...man...if little Bobby could spend his HS years there? Taking the T into Boston to see shows, the sox, the etc...

I know there's gotta be other single parents in my area, who will be buying a place this Summer they can afford where they'd rather buy a place they're in love with. I just gotta find them and convince them we'd be wonderful roommates...

hey BigBobby, I'm new to the site, but I just noticed your post. I am from the metro boston area. I noticed this just a couple of days ago. At wellington circle in Medford they now have Stations Landing. I don't know if you have seen it yet. It's across near KISS 108 F.M. Anyways, they have condos over there, very very cheap right now. I'm not sure the exact price, but I know they went down quite a bit. I'd check that out and maybe you can find something there. It's called Arborpoint at Stations Landing. I hope I could help you out a little. Good Luck!!!