Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?
Mixing friendship and money, whether that's loans or landlording, is risky. Often things work out, but sometimes the unexpected happens, and it doesn't. If things go wrong, are you prepared to walk away from either the friendship or the money? After you've considered that, the next question is how your roommates feel about the deal. You're looking to charge your friends $2000 to rent part of a property that, from the sound of it, they could rent much cheaper from a stranger. Maybe the market is different in Cleveland, but in my area, I'd expect to pay $2000 in rent for a place worth closer to $300,000 than $100,000. Have your roommates expressed interest in the idea, and have you discussed dollar values with them? Are you still interested if they ended up paying $1600 in rent? $1000?