This guide was developed with Mayor Wu’s ambitious goal to make Boston the best big city in the country to raise a family in mind. Creating new homeownership opportunities is a key priority identified in Boston’s 2025 Housing Strategy. As a first objective, the strategy seeks to broaden financial assistance for homebuyers and current homeowners, particularly for residents who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

The Mayor's Office of Housing is interested in new ways of supporting affordable homeownership opportunities in Boston. One strategy we're exploring is supporting multiple households who wish to live intentionally together (where each household lives in one unit of a multifamily property) with the funds necessary to support down payment and closing costs.

We developed this guide to both help buyers understand how to protect themselves in co-purchasing and co-ownership arrangements, and identify where city support is available. This guide is meant to provide general information and is not meant as legal or tax advice.