Duplex“Friendship make prosperity brighter, while it lightens adversity by sharing its griefs and anxieties.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

My friend, Brian, was interviewed about his experience with buying a duplex in the Bay Area. He bought it with a new friend last year. Eve Mitchell writes, “Families have long purchased duplexes to live in, especially those from the Latino and Asian communities. The latest twist is that friends ” and even strangers ” are signing on as financial partners to get into a duplex.”
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Even HUD concurs, “Duplex housing has long been a path toward affordable homeownership. Early in the twentieth century, the great cities of the east met affordable housing needs by building hundreds of thousands of two- and even three-family (‘triple decker’) homes that housed a generation of newly arriving immigrants.”

Such housing is less common on the west coast but they do exist. Mitchell continues, “With the Bay Area’s high-cost housing market making it difficult for many to buy homes, more and more people are teaming up to buy duplexes to get a foot in the door.”

Condos have long been the way for renters to dip their toe in homeownership. But as Patrick Barta from The Wall Street Journal warns, “Condos are more common in some places because they can be cheaper and easier to build, a phenomenon that has spelled trouble in the past, especially in the downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Boston, for example, condo prices dropped 20% between 1989 and 1991, compared to about 16% for single-family homes.”

“Another problem with condominiums is that they often are very much alike. That means that if you have to sell quickly in a down market, there’s a good chance there will be similar product available elsewhere, possibly even in your same building, putting you at a competitive disadvantage. Single-family homes and duplexes are often more unique, which could help them sell in troubled times.”

Mitchell continues, “A duplex typically costs more than a single-family home. But if you do the math ” dividing the cost of the monthly mortgage payment in two ” each side ends up paying significantly less than the mortgage for a single-family home. Maintenance expenses and property taxes are shared, and both parties can claim their portion of the mortgage-interest tax deduction.”

“Buying a duplex does have some risks, such as a financial partner not paying the mortgage or not keeping up with maintenance. And selling it could be more complicated than a house or condominium. Still, duplexes provide a way of getting around the Bay Area’s incredibly high cost of housing.”

In Los Angeles, Randye Hoder gives a first hand account of her experience in an Op-Ed piece entitled: A Duplex with a Built-In Family. She talks about the pros and cons of living next door to Anne but, “In the end, the trade-offs are well worth it; we all can afford to live in a beautiful home in a neighborhood we love.”

“Meanwhile, we share the unspoken bargain that families make: We drive each other crazy sometimes, but it’s a price we are willing to pay for the companionship, laughter, comfort and love that we give each other. It’s not a perfect family. But it is ours, only bigger now that Anne lives next door.”