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Straight Answers · Buying together
Can two friends or siblings buy a home together?
Bayley Clarke · Mortgage broker on the road · Last checked 21 August 2026 · 5 min read
The short answer
Yes. Of course you can. The bank treats you as two separate households on one loan, plugs both sets of living expenses in, and works out what the pair of you can borrow. I bought my first property with a mate and it worked out great.
The loan is the easy bit. What catches people is two or three years later, when one of you wants out, or wants to buy with a partner, and nobody wrote down what happens then. Most of this page is about that, because that is the part the bank won't raise with you.
The 60 second version. The rest of this page is the detail underneath it.
How the bank actually looks at two of you
A couple applying together is one household: one set of living expenses, two incomes. Two friends or two siblings are two households on the same application. The lender runs a separate living expense figure for each of you, then puts both incomes and both sets of expenses through its calculator.
That sounds like a small distinction. It isn't. Two households cost more to run than one on paper, so the same two incomes borrow less as friends than they would as a couple. And every lender sets that household floor differently, which is why the same pair of applicants can get meaningfully different answers from different banks.
That is the part of this I actually enjoy. Working out which lenders treat two households most fairly is the difference between the number you were hoping for and the number you get.
The bit that catches people two years later
Nobody plans to fall out with their brother. Nobody plans to meet someone eighteen months after settlement and want to buy a place together. Both happen constantly, and the loan you signed as friends is still sitting there when they do.
The whole loan is yours. A joint home loan is normally joint and several, which is legal language for: each of you is on the hook for all of it, not your half. If your co-owner stops paying, the bank doesn't chase half the repayment from you. It chases the repayment.
It follows you into your next application. When you later go to buy with a partner, most lenders count the full joint loan against you and only credit you with your share of the rent. A $700,000 loan you hold with a mate can show up as $700,000 of debt and half the rent on your next application. People are routinely surprised by how much that drags their borrowing power, and by then the property is already bought.
Your first home buyer status gets used up. Buying now, even as an investment with a sibling, will generally mean you are no longer a first home buyer when you go to buy the place you actually want to live in. Stamp duty concessions and the Home Guarantee Scheme normally need every buyer on the title to qualify, so if one of you has owned before, the other can be ruled out as well. On a property in the $700,000 range, the stamp duty concession you give up can be in the low to mid twenty thousands depending on your state. That is not a reason not to do it. It is a number that belongs in the decision.
Same property, two different ways to hold it
How your names go on the title matters more than most people realise, and the default your conveyancer uses is not always the right one for two unrelated buyers.
| Joint tenants | Tenants in common | |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership shares | Equal, always | Any split you agree: 50/50, 60/40, 70/30 |
| If one owner dies | Their share passes automatically to the other owner | Their share goes to their estate |
| Unequal deposits | Not reflected on the title | Can be reflected in the split |
| Usually suits | Couples | Friends, siblings, business-style co-owners |
Most friends and siblings end up as tenants in common, because it lets the shares match what each person actually put in. Your solicitor sets this up. Your job is to have the conversation before they ask, not while the contract is open on the desk.
The questions to have answered before anyone signs
- How long are we holding this? Agree a minimum. Two to three years is a common floor, because selling inside that window rarely covers the buying and selling costs.
- If one of us wants to sell, what happens? Does the other get first right to buy them out? How long do they get to arrange it? If they can't, does the property go on the market?
- How do we price a buy out? One valuation, or two and take the average? Who pays for it? Decide now, while nobody has a reason to argue the number.
- What if one of us can't pay their share one month? Remember the bank still wants the whole repayment. A small buffer account you both pay into covers a bad month without a phone call.
- What happens when a partner turns up? Can they move in? Can they buy in? This is the one that actually ends most co-ownerships, and it is the one nobody talks about at the start.
- Who does the admin? Rates, insurance, the property manager, the tax return. Name a person.
Put the answers in a co ownership agreement drawn up by a solicitor. It costs a fraction of what one disagreement costs, and the conversation it forces is worth more than the document.
When it's worth it, and when it isn't
If buying together is the only way either of you gets into a property you both actually want, and you have done the list above properly, it can be a genuinely good move. You get into the market years earlier, the growth works for two people instead of none, and the discipline of a shared mortgage is real.
If you can't get to a clear agreement up front, that tells you something. Disagreeing about the exit before you buy is cheap. Disagreeing about it after you buy is the expensive version of the same conversation, and you will be having it with a sibling or a mate rather than a stranger.
The honest test: if one of you would be buying on your own in two years anyway, run both numbers. What you can buy together now, against what you each give up in first home buyer benefits and future borrowing power. Sometimes the answer is buy together. Sometimes it is wait. Both are fine. Drifting into it without the numbers is the only bad option.
The order of operations
Talk first, bank second. Sit down with the person you are buying with and work through the list above until you agree or find out you don't. Then get the borrowing power done properly, across lenders, with both households modelled, so you know the real envelope before you start looking. Then the solicitor for the title structure and the agreement. Then the property.
Every expensive version of this story runs that list backwards.
Want the real number for the two of you?
Give me half an hour with both of you on the call. I'll model you as two households across the lenders, tell you what you can borrow together, and put it next to what you each give up by not buying alone. If the answer is wait, I'll say wait.
No application, no credit check, nothing on your file. Just the numbers.
Next question
How does a guarantor loan actually work?The other way family gets you into a property without buying it with you.
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