I'm a homeowner and comfortably paying my mortgage. I recently had a 30% increase in my wage and although I know there are better ways to invest I'd really like to help my brother who is trying to get into the housing market. Of course it still has to be beneficial to myself/family but I'm okay with it not being as beneficial as other investments (or paying down my house asap).

Starter homes here are $400K. There is also a good rental market (basements for $1200/month. Give me options misc.

1. Offer to buy house with him, simply pay my half and as property increases in value so does my investment (this is poor for sure but I'm really keen on helping him. The real downside is that when my kids are old enough to buy their own houses I could see wanting this money to help them with a good down payment. I would have to force him to buy me out). We will inherit decent money one day so I could receive my buyout then (I hate banking on an agreement regarding our parents death but...).

2. Buy part of house with a basement suite and collect the rent. If it's keeping me breaking even then it's a decent investment.

3. Any other ideas? I won't purchase and rent to him, that doesn't help him.

I would recommend not putting large sums of money on the line with your brother

Yeah if you want to stay friends with your bro, keep business and family separate. Otherwise its pretty much asking for some financial stuff to literally tear you apart sometime down the road.

Get some tax planning advice, but look to do it via a family trust. You can jointly hold it in trust, and you can finance through a trust too. The asset does not belong to either of you, it belongs to the trust of which you would be beneficiaries.

He is not the issue, one of you may be the issue if you ever end up getting divorced and the asset falls within the assessable pool. It likely will in the case of divorce, but held in trust you have more protection

tell him if he wants some help he better start sucking

No good deed goes unpunished. Best way to ruin family relationships is going into business with them.

If you truly want to help, help him with the down payment. A lump sum with no strings attached. Leave the rest up to him.

If there are decent rentals for 1200, then get him into that and be a positive force in his life for savings, investing and help him be smart with getting a home. Giving him the money/home will lead to issues when he cannot pay for the home. He's gotta get there himself, but you can fast track him there without giving money.

"Have him buy me out" ...that assumes he will either have 200k on hand or will have to sell the home, what if the market is trash? What if his girl wants 50%, what if he can't sell and doesn't have the money? The list goes on, don't mix money and blood homie, listen to biggie, he was a shark of a real estate agent before he got caught up in crack and rap.

Invest in IRAs and the stock market 1st.
Don’t give money to family or friends and expect to get it back. Because often, you won’t.

You can currently gift an individual 16k tax free per year if he needs help with a down-payment. If you wanted to do that, you could just open a joint bank account and put the money in there.

That would allow him to gift the money back to you at whatever level he can over a couple of years, and you can keep giving each other money every year up to that level.

This is not tax, legal, or investment advice, just AFAIK what you can currently give each other if that is any help.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small...-on-gift-taxes

The general rule is that any gift is a taxable gift. However, there are many exceptions to this rule. Generally, the following gifts are not taxable gifts.

Gifts that are not more than the annual exclusion for the calendar year.
Tuition or medical expenses you pay for someone (the educational and medical exclusions).
Gifts to your spouse.
Gifts to a political organization for its use.
In addition to this, gifts to qualifying charities are deductible from the value of the gift(s) made.

...as people mentioned, there is no guarantee he will give you the same money in return.