Do not buy a house with someone whom you are not legaly married to. No matter what. In no way does it make sense unless you can afford to loose everything you put into it. As for a down payment, If you are not married there will be an issue with the down payment. Whom ever is the first name on the house would need to have the whole down payment from their earnings or else they will have to pay taxes on the money from the other person. This may work better if you're both equal holders in the house and have the EXACT same down payment though. Seriously, unless you're married or they are your parents, don't buy a house with someone. Oh, yeah, forgot to put that in. I'd definitely either buy it myself or we'd be married. Going to live together in a rental next year at least, if not two years. My story from my parents being landlords of a home....is that e had a renter he never really liked me or my brother...so he decides not to pay us 1 month of rent and my mom said nah we want this guy out....so he leaves without paying the rent...my parents didn't give the deposit because of his actions...me and my smart brother went looking for him and he gave us the money for the month....and we kept it and my mom didn't know so we had $1900 cash but it was after the problem was straightened out...we went 50/50 and yeah...that was my good experience... sounds like a winner. did u dance after that? Hell to the yeah......dude was pretty chill about it....went to the store and still have some left over from like December of 09