Buyers go in together on homes

Longtime friends and empty-nesters Susan Grady and Sharon McAbee would talk on the phone week after week and lament their loneliness.

“Finally, we said, ‘We’re so stupid,‘ “ Grady recalled.

They decided to stop living alone and buy a house together.

It took them a year to find the perfect house — a spacious home on a golf course in Chesterfield County. They ironed out the details with an attorney, got a mortgage together, and have been more than satisfied with the results since moving more than a year ago.

“We’ve been really happy here,“ said Grady, a human-resources generalist with Virginia Blood Services. “We like the location, we like the house, and our neighbors are great.“
Grady, 68, and McAbee, 52, represent what could become a trend — friends co-owning homes — for baby boomers, who because of scattered families and because of their sheer numbers might need to create their own support systems as they grow older.

“I think it’s gotten a lot more attention on the national level, and I think that it will trickle down to where we see it in Richmond among baby boomers,“ said Ben Winters, a real estate agent with Hometown Realty who worked with Grady and McAbee and has represented other clients who purchased homes together.

Time magazine wrote about the phenomenon this month but focused mostly on 20-somethings pooling their limited resources to buy homes. Time dubbed them communal homeowners or co-hos.

Winters said the advantages of co-owning a home for older homebuyers are largely financial — shared expenses and home maintenance, more buying power — but it also can help stave off loneliness for those living alone.

That was the case for Grady, a mother, grandmother and widow, and McAbee, who is divorced and whose only child is a senior in college.

McAbee, who operates a cleaning service, had been renting a home since her divorce but liked the idea of “paying into something I’m going to get equity out of.“

“The other thing is companionship,“ said McAbee, who’s been friends for 30 years with Grady, who is godmother to McAbee’s daughter. “When my daughter went to college, I was miserable.“
Said Grady, “It’s nice to have someone to cook for.“

The two share cooking duties and other household chores. They live with three dogs and a one-eyed cat in a five-bedroom, 3,800-square-foot house that provides plenty of space for privacy and for welcoming visiting children, mothers and other relatives.

They hosted both of their extended families last Thanksgiving and Christmas. They’re still working on merging their furniture.

“She got rid of a lot of stuff, and I got rid of a lot of stuff,“ McAbee said.

“And our garage still has a lot of stuff,“ Grady said with a laugh.

The downside, of course, is the risk factor of entering into a partnership with someone with whom you’ve never lived.

“It’s just like getting married,“ Grady said. “You think you know somebody until you live with them. The good news is, we’re both pretty easygoing and both pretty mouthy, so we just kind of work it out.“

Said McAbee: “The key is you really need to know the other person. You can’t have an acquaintance you’ve known for a couple of years. You really have to know their quirks.“

Added Grady with a laugh, “Since we’ve moved here, I’ve quit smoking and gotten quirkier.“

The danger if you can’t work it out is that you might end up taking a loss on your investment if you decided to go your separate ways and sell after a short time, said R. Scott Shaheen, regional vice president of the Richmond region for Long & Foster and president for the Richmond Association of Realtors.

Grady and McAbee consulted an attorney and had a contract prepared that addresses such issues as what happens when one of them dies — each has a lifetime right to the house as long as they can afford it — and who inherits the proceeds from the eventual sale of the property.

“After this move,“ McAbee said with a laugh, “we decided we’ll die here. We don’t want to move anymore.“

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or .