Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Any opinions? We've been dating and in a SOLID relationship for almost 2 years plus....and engagement is 'coming' LOL...I just dont know when cause he wants to 'surprise' me.....A house is a big responsibility, which we found so soon after looking! AND, I am dying to live w/ him. But a house 1st???
Oh...I'm 33! lol

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

I didn't, but DH's best friend and his GF are house hunting. They are in their late 20s./close to 30. She just got tenured with teaching and he works in IT - they stated they do not want to waste their money in renting and currently both live with their families.

A lot of people will say it's a bad idea, but if the two of you are ready for the responsibility and can afford it, I say go ahead, but make sure that the house is signed by equal parties, so you each own half incase anything happens down the road.

Good luck!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We bought our home a yr into our realationship. We married another 2 yrs after that. lol Worked out great for us.

ETA: We actually were living together about 2 weeks after we met.

Message edited 5/7/2009 9:28:53 PM.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We bought our house when we were engaged (about 7 months before the wedding). I really don't think it matters when you buy a house..it has nothing to do with being engaged/married! We were happy that we bought it before we got married so we had somewhere to go after the wedding! lol and it was less stressful that way!!!!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We started house shopping a few months before becoming engaged, but stopped once we got engaged because we couldnt afford both.

We are now 2 months away from the wedding and still waiting for a closing date...I really wish we could have started this process earlier but FH lost his job and threw our plans off.

My advice...If you can afford it, go for it!!!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We werent engaged when DH bought the house, we were living together though and dating a few years.
But it was his house, since he paid for it.
I honestly didnt have money to put toward it.
But now that we are married its both of ours.

A friend of mine is dating someone and they are going to buy a place together, they are not engaged either.

I can see why people would think its a bad idea, cause like what happens if you break up, but even if your married its a whole big ordeal when you own something as well.
So either way married or not shiit can happen

I say go for it

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Best decision we ever made (<--- besides the two kids )...... Go for it.

We had been dating for nearly 3 years, and house hunted for almost a year. When we finally found a house, we bought, moved in, THEN got engaged 2 months later and married 18 months after that. We were both 28 when we bought the house.

Good Luck!

Message edited 5/7/2009 11:21:16 PM.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We bought our home 2 yrs into our relationship and engaged about a year and half later.

So far it's worked out for us.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

I think its a great step in your relationship. Just make sure the house is in both of your names!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We bought our house before we were engaged. We closed in September we got engaged in February and married 18 months later. Worked out great for us. We have lived here for almost 3 years now. ITA about making sure the house is in both of your names though. Pretty much everything we did for the house we did equally and we had no issues.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We did it but we were engaged. We started house hunting before we were engaged though as we knew that marriage was coming. It took us awhile to find the house we truly wanted. We ended up closing 7 months before our wedding.

I say, go for it! You are the only one that knows how solid your relationship is

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

I think if you can buy a house before than thats great!! DH bought our house a few years before we started dating and I moved in with him about a year after we started dating.

We didnt get married for 3 years later and I think it worked out pretty great.

Message edited 5/8/2009 8:31:33 AM.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We bought our house about 4 months before we got engaged. I knew that since DH was asking me to commit to a house that he was going to ask me to marry him sooner than later lol


Go for it, especially with the way the market is now! If you don't you will probably regret it as the house prices rise (eventually).

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Well, I have it from both perspectives! I was engaged when I was 27, bought a condo with my then fiance and we ended up breaking up. I had put almost all of the money down so I paid him back for his share, but I always felt bad about all the effort he put into that place. I don't think that there were any hard feelings but it can get tricky. plus, I was always afraid when i went to sell it that his name would be on the deed (I didn't think it was because I took out the mortgage alone), and that I would have to contact him and that it would get messy. Luckily it was fine.

Then, my husband and I bought our house before we got married. It worked out fine. It would have been tricky if we had broken up but it worked out just fine.

I think as long as you are in a solid relationship it's fine. I would go for it!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

DH and I would have bought a house together before marriage for sure - and that was kind of our plan - but then we decided to do the big NY wedding thing and we didnt have the money to do both (and re-locate) all around the same time....

i will say that a small part of me is glad we waited though b/c its exciting and the house has been something that we can look forward to together now that the wedding is over - if we didnt have anything going on i might be a little more sad that the engagement and wedding is over - but im not b/c i have the house to keep me occupied and excited...also we had been living together for almost 4 years before the wedding so the house will be something "new" for us....

but really what it comes down to is the $$ - if you have it i think its a pretty good time to buy, so i say go for it!

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

I didn't do this but I had a friend who did - they actually had the house built so it took a while, and then he proposed to her the day they moved into their house! It was very sweet.

My perspective on it was that buying a house together is a much bigger commitment than getting engaged - it is a lot easier to sell a ring than sell a house! So this was just as grand a gesture of how they felt about each other as it would have been to get engaged first.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

We weren't engaged but we were living together when I bought the house. I was tired of paying high rent and figured it would be a smart time to buy (the market was in decline). We were engaged several months later. When it's official, I'll have the deed transferred into both our names. He contributes equally but I technically "bought" the house (down payment, etc.). It's our home and I have never thought of it as mine/his. Been there, done that

We're getting married on 11/1/09.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

Personally, I would never do it. I guess I am old fashioned, but for me, I didn't want the commitment to a mortgage or to mix my finances with someone until I was actually married to them.

It looks like it worked out for lots of people on here, but I know a couple of people who did this and it became very messy when they broke up.

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

we bought our house about 6 months before the wedding. we had been dating for almost 5 years. I didn't have any money to put towards it, so DH (Fh at the time) paid the downpayment, etc and it was in his name.
after we got married, we put my name on it... we ended up selling it like 2 years later because we decided to buy his parents house from them
i think that even if you're married and you own a house and something happens, its still a whole big ordeal to split it up or whatever... so either way you would have to deal with some kind of issues...

Re: Buying a house before engagement/marriage?

we bought our house before even getting engaged too!
like you, we had a solid relationship and knew we were getting married..eventually!

it was the best move! living together first! i am so glad we did it!

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I am going too....the house will most likey be in my name only but we will live there together (I will put him on the title- since he is putting money into it)

we are both in the real estate business- buying this house is cheaper then us renting something- and we have known since day one that we are going to get married (if I got engaged now I think my family would have me committed )