{"id":45490,"date":"2026-02-15T18:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-bought-a-house-with-my-best-friend-its-the-best-living-situation-ive-ever-had\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:21:16","slug":"i-bought-a-house-with-my-best-friend-its-the-best-living-situation-ive-ever-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-bought-a-house-with-my-best-friend-its-the-best-living-situation-ive-ever-had\/","title":{"rendered":"I bought a house with my best friend. It&#8217;s the best living situation I&#8217;ve ever had."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/698a19ddd3c7faef0ecde7c9?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Friends posing for photo\"\/><figcaption>Sarai Saez Rogers bought a house with her best friend after both got divorced.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Sarai Saez Rogers<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Sarai Saez Rogers bought a house and moved in with her best friend in Utica, New York.<\/li>\n<li>Both women have said that this has been the best living situation they&#039;ve ever had.<\/li>\n<li>Living together hasn&#039;t affected their romantic relationships with others. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sarai Saez Rogers, a 36-year-old mom. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When Claire, my best friend for over 10 years, and I laid eyes on the late-18th-century duplex with a big front yard, we knew it was the perfect house to buy together.<\/p>\n<p>We&#039;d gotten to know each other in New Mexico, where both of our husbands were stationed while in the military. For 10 years, we were each other&#039;s community. Neither of us had family around, so we had to make our own support systems.<\/p>\n<h2>We both got divorced<\/h2>\n<p>My husband and I divorced, and there was a six-month period when Claire&#039;s husband was deployed. The two of us practically lived together for those six months. We cooked and ate together, picked each other&#039;s kids up from school (she has two, and I have one), worked out together, and even had family sleepovers. I found that being a single mom didn&#039;t mean I had to shoulder the load alone.<\/p>\n<p>I moved to Maryland for a new job. I quickly found out how expensive it was to be a single parent, and relocated to upstate New York to live with my parents.<\/p>\n<p>Claire and her husband then divorced, and she moved in with her parents in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>We stayed in touch, both dreaming about what it would be like to buy a house, but knowing we couldn&#039;t afford it as single parents. Although we both appreciated living with our parents, it wasn&#039;t an ideal situation after being used to living independently for so long.<\/p>\n<h2>We bought a house together<\/h2>\n<p>At some point during our phone calls, we considered moving in together. We trusted, respected, and liked each other. We&#039;d both say that for the first time in a long time, we knew what it was to feel safe with another person, to be loved for who we were, rather than for who someone wanted us to be.<\/p>\n<p>I had a steady income and credit, and Claire had savings, so we&#039;d be a team if we were to buy a house together.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/698a1a2fd3c7faef0ecde7df?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Friends jumping in front of house\"\/><figcaption>Sarai Saez Rogers bought a house with her bestfriend.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Sarai Saez Rogers<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the summer of 2024, Claire visited us in New York, and on somewhat of a whim, we decided to look at houses for sale.<\/p>\n<p>We saw a happy, yellow duplex, one that our real estate agent tried to dissuade us from viewing, as it was a bit odd, and both fell in love. It was built in the 1800s with period features, located on a quiet street, with a huge yard speckled with trees. It had originally been a farmhouse with different families, so it was a perfect setup for us. There are two bedrooms upstairs, and three downstairs, with a bathroom and kitchen on each floor.<\/p>\n<p>We bought it, and every day, even on the days we have arguments, I&#039;m so glad we made the decision to live together.<\/p>\n<h2>I get to live with my best friend<\/h2>\n<p>In a world where friendships aren&#039;t always cherished because we&#039;re too busy, I get to see my best friend every single day. We support, love, and are there for each other at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, we had gin and tonics and watched &quot;Mulan&quot; together, belting each song. By bucking the trend that says our setup is reserved for youth, we&#039;re experiencing the closeness many people have when they share rooms or houses in their early 20s.<\/p>\n<p>One of the questions people have asked us is what we&#039;ll do if we develop romantic connections. I tell them we both are in romantic relationships. Claire and I have boyfriends, but why should that impact our home situation? We don&#039;t have to move in with partners out of necessity, but only if we choose to. <\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/698a1a90a645d1188188f8a5?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Women moving washer\"\/><figcaption>Sarai Saez Rogers says her friendship with Claire is one of the deepest relationships she&#039;s had.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Sarai Saez Rogers<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We&#039;ve also discussed the possibility of partners moving in \u2014 splitting the house right down the middle and having separate rather than shared living spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Another question people ask is what happens if and when we argue. This is an easy one. I don&#039;t think deep, authentic relationships can exist without conflict. In any relationship, romantic or platonic, there will be disagreements. It&#039;s healthy if it&#039;s dealt with in a caring, respectful way.<\/p>\n<p>When we argue or get on each other&#039;s nerves, we take space and then come back together to talk it through. It&#039;s made us closer, rather than driving us apart.<\/p>\n<h2>I&#039;m never taking friendships for granted<\/h2>\n<p>After my divorce, I thought a lot about how, for years, romantic love had been the epitome of a relationship, the most ideal love to build a life around.<\/p>\n<p>Since living with Claire, I&#039;ve realised I was wrong. My friendship with Claire is one of the deepest relationships I&#039;ve ever had. Why would I not move in with her? Why would I not build a life alongside her? With her, with my friend, I feel like I&#039;m not just surviving, but thriving.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I am in a romantic relationship with someone else now, I&#039;ll never take friendship for granted again.<\/p>\n<p>Bucking convention, buying a house and living with my best friend has made me incredibly happy, happier than I ever have been.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarai Saez Rogers bought a house with her best friend after both got divorced. Courtesy of Sarai Saez Rogers Sarai Saez Rogers bought a house and moved in with her best friend in Utica, New York. Both women have said that this has been the best living situation they&#039;ve ever had. Living together hasn&#039;t affected [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}