We bought a house together as friends to get on the property ladder — it was our only option

Just before the pandemic, 29-year-old Cullen Farleigh and Olamide Soyemi were faced with a choice.

They could either continue to rent in London and pay a premium for doing so, or they could pool their money together to get on the property ladder.

They took a risk and went with the latter.

After doing the calculations, they realised that their joint income and savings were enough to buy them a house – and they ended up with a three-bedroom property in East London sooner than they expected.

‘We didn’t really have any other option. We were interested in property, but we never really took it seriously because we knew how ridiculous the house prices were,’ Cullen tells Metro.co.uk, adding that they managed to buy a property very quickly which wasn’t ‘super planned,’ but was a ‘surprise.’

(Cullen and Olamide had to do a lot of DIY on their property -Image: Supplied)

The pair had met and subsequently lived together at university in 2015, so they knew that it was likely to be a housemate match.

‘We couldn’t afford a house individually,’ Ola says. ‘We could trust each other as friends, and we knew that would be a good investment to make long-term.’

Their Victorian property has two bathrooms, three bedrooms (one of which they use as an office), a kitchen and another smaller bathroom.

Originally on the market for £450,000, they put down £45,000 plus fees as a deposit and rinsed all of their savings, so much so that they didn’t have much left over to renovate it.

"we spent a very long time ripping it apart and fixing crumbling walls. Doing all this DIY stuff that we didn’t anticipate and didn’t have the money for,’ Cullen adds.

It’s little surprise that friends are now teaming up to buy together.

Between 2013 and 2021, home ownership amongst young people had risen from 8% in 2013 to just over 12% in 2021 – but young people in 2021 were still half as likely to own their own home than young people had been 30 years earlier.

(Steph and Kristina bought a house together in 2020. Image: Supplied)

Steph Douglass and Kristina Modares decided to buy a house in Austin, Texas after they realised it wasn’t possible for them to buy alone.

(The pair also set up a business, Open House Austin. Image: Supplied)

(Rob Burley, 46, felt priced out of the housing market as a single person, and so decided to buy with his sister in Sheffield.)

Ref: We bought a house together as friends to get on the property ladder — it was our only option (Metro)

Photo Credit-Supplied, metro