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House hunting with your partner: sounds exciting, right? It’s a new chapter in your lives. You’re finally going to be homeowners. Gone will be the days of sharing walls with loud neighbors and having to take your dog for long walks each time he has to do his business. You’ll have your own property with a yard: no shared walls. No sense of intrusion. And you’ll have one of the most valuable assets possible: a home. Buying a house with your partner is also a way of taking your commitment to each other deeper. Forget getting married: buying property together is the real union. The paperwork surrounding that, should you ever split up, is far more complicated than divorce papers. But looking for a house can take a lot out of you, and challenge your relationship in ways you hadn’t expected. Here’s what you should prepare for.
The scheduling alone will test you
If you find a property you want to see, when you see it isn’t entirely up to your convenience. The open house is on such and such day, during limited hours. Or the realtor can only meet you there during a very small window. So you’re both scrambling to see a house during your lunch break, and you’ll get in fights when one person runs late, or arrives looking so disheveled that who would sell a house to that person. Just making these open houses and showings work within your busy schedules will cause many micro fights.
