Caveat Co-Owner

If the person who leaves remains on the loan and has credit problems, "that impairs the other person's credit, too," Jenks said. "Once you sign a note with a co-borrower, you're really in bed with that person until the note is paid off or you or the co-borrower is released from the note."

One of the major issues co-buyers need to decide is how they will take title.

Married people often own as tenants by the entirety, a form that is not available to unmarried people. Instead, they choose between tenancy in common and joint tenancy.

If owners are tenants in common, then upon the death of one, his interest passes to his estate, not to the other owner. "If something happens to one of you, let's say a bus runs over the lover, you end up owning the property with the estate of the deceased," Jenks said.

Writes Kennedy: "If you're not the first to go, your common-law mother-in-law could become your new roomie, or she could force you to buy her out or sell the property."

If the buyers are joint tenants, also known as joint tenants with right of survivorship, if one owner dies, the other automatically gets the partner's share. This form is often used by gay and lesbian couples.

District residents Trip Nesbitt and Cy Ardoin created a domestic partnership agreement and mutual wills to ensure that each would be the other's heir. When they bought a three-bedroom house in Crestwood last year, they took ownership as joint tenants, "specifically because if Cy's parents . . . should all of a sudden decide that their son is sinful and not give any respect to our relationship, I would be out half a house," Nesbitt said. "Which is what would happen if we bought as tenants in common."

Their agreement spells out that the ownership is 50-50 and says either one must give written notice if he wants to sell, Nesbitt said.

The couple had two meetings on the paperwork with a Baltimore law firm that specializes in transactions for gay and lesbian couples. "It took about three days," Nesbitt said.

"There were a lot of questions raised that we hadn't expected, but fortunately we were both on the same page," he said.

Though it may seem like tempting fate to go without an agreement, some buyers say their experience has been positive.

Monique Laventure and Lauri Swift, who have been friends since ninth grade at West Springfield High School, last year bought two properties together after Swift separated from her husband. One was a Reston townhouse that they purchased to live in. The other was a new house in West Virginia that they purchased as an investment.

The two women see each other a lot; they also work together. Now that Laventure has married for the second time and moved herself and a teenager out of the Reston house, the friends are talking about how to end their joint ownership of that property.

"We don't have anything other than a verbal agreement," Laventure said. "She'll probably refinance and give me some of the equity."

The two have seen what can happen to friends over real estate -- a third partner in the West Virginia house changed her mind and the women stopped being friends for "a long period of time," Laventure said. But the two remaining friends say their relationship works because of mutual trust and respect.

"We've known each other for thirty-something years -- she's like a sister to me," Laventure said.

The same kind of mutual trust and admiration is at the heart of the house that District lawyers Sterling Ashby, Eve Runyon and Obiamaka Okwumuaba own in Mount Pleasant in Northwest Washington. They do have an agreement in principle, saying that it would take two people to force the sale of the house during the first four years of ownership, and only one person after that, but they never actually signed it.

By pooling their money, the trio bought a bigger, better place than any of them could have alone.

"Instead of each buying 1,000 square feet on the outskirts of Washington, we were able to buy a five-bedroom, five-bath house in the heart of the city for $900,000," Ashby said.

Runyon and Ashby say the house has also provided an opportunity to build other kinds of partnerships, both for business and for community-building as African Americans. The two, both in their thirties, have held fundraisers for nonprofit groups at their house and discussed community projects, such as starting a debate team at Kelly Miller Middle School in Northeast Washington.

Others haven't been so lucky. Julie Ross-Rose, a teacher who bought in July in Columbia Heights in Northwest Washington with two lawyer friends, said the situation seemed ideal when they started. Before teaming up as a trio, she and one of the women had joined forces but were stymied by the hot market. "The more we looked, the less we could find in our price range," she said.

When the third woman found a house she wanted, she offered the other two the chance to go in on the deal. "On paper it seemed like a great idea," Ross-Rose said. The 4,200-square-foot house cost $775,000; it had six bedrooms and the potential for a basement rental.

Trouble was, the house needed a total renovation, and the other two women "couldn't agree on anything," Ross-Rose recalled. "They were two very strong women who were pretty used to making their own decisions. It was hard for them to work together."

After an "awful summer," the woman who had found the house bought out the other two in November. Ross-Rose stayed on as a renter until last month, when she moved in with her boyfriend. "It was a learning experience," she said. "Would I do it again? I'm not sure. The worst thing about it is, I lost a friend."