Mitchell Joyce https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

The Wall Street Journal quoted me in Helping Your Kids Qualify for a Mortgage? What to Know Before Cosigning on the Dotted Line. It reads, in part,

With rising interest rates and slowing real-estate sales, homeownership remains out of reach for many would-be buyers. According to the National Association of Home Builders, in the second quarter of 2022, housing affordability fell to its lowest point since the 2007-09 recession.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index found that just 42.8% of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of April and the end of June were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $90,000. This is a sharp drop from the 56.9% of homes sold in the first quarter that were affordable to median-income earners.One option to improve affordability, especially for those who lack good credit: Have mom and dad cosign the mortgage. Many parents are willing to do so, according to data prepared for The Wall Street Journal by LendingTree Inc., an online loan marketplace, which reported that 57% of parents would be willing to cosign their child’s mortgage and 7% have done so in the past.

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There is a difference between cosigning and guaranteeing. According to David Reiss, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in real estate, a parent acting as a co-borrower has the same responsibilities under the loan as their child. They are liable for the payments as they come due and can be sued by the lender for nonpayment if the loan becomes delinquent. But a parent acting as a guarantor has a different legal relationship with both the lender and the child. A parent guarantor would be responsible for the loan only if the child first defaults.

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