CoHo Success Stories
HOUSE WITH LANEWAY HOME FOR FORMER NEIGHBOURS
Buyers: Rhainnon, Carter + 2 kids (Family of 4) + Jen
Previous Relationship: Neighbours
Purchased: House with laneway house in East Vancouver, Fall 2020
The Story:
Excerpt from the Vancouver Sun, No Fences Make Great Neighbours, Feb 5, 2021
“When the Foxes, a couple with sons aged five and seven, immigrated to Vancouver from the U.S. in 2017, they moved into a two-bedroom unit in a rental building near Commercial Drive. They hoped to eventually move into a larger place and possibly to own. But, Carter Fox said, they knew that would be challenging in Vancouver insane property market.
The Foxes became friends with their neighbour in their rental building, Jennifer Spear, a Simon Fraser University professor.
Realizing they might be able to make their money go farther if they teamed up, Spear and the Foxes started working with Dolgin, who connected them with legal and financial professionals with specific expertise in crafting these kinds of arrangements. They eventually bought a property in Hastings Sunrise, consisting of an 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom house and an 840-square-foot, two-bedroom, four-year-old laneway house.
The parties agreed to a 60-40 split on the property’s $1.76 million price tag, with the Foxes paying the larger portion for the larger house, and Spear moving into the laneway house with her two dogs. They all share the backyard.
Now, four months after taking possession, everyone — three adults, two kids and the two dogs — is thrilled with the property.
Partnering up with Spear “just gave us that little bit of extra reach in terms of what we could get,” said Carter Fox. For the amount each party spent on this property, neither would have been able to get a comparable home if they had gone it alone.
The situation is not without risk or downside, though. All three adults are on title together, Carter said, which means that “technically, if one of us defaulted on our mortgage, then the other is responsible financially. So these are considerations that we have to have thought through and discussed, coming into it.”
Spear, also originally from the U.S., had been renting since arriving in Vancouver 11 years ago, and said she “never thought I’d be able to own property, and particularly not a free-standing house with a backyard.”