Best friends, both single moms, bought a house and raised kids together.

• A casual conversation with my best friend turned into a serious discussion about buying a house together.
• My friend and I were both single – he had a baby and I was pregnant, so that helped financially.
• Having a friend close by made parenting as a new mom easier, and it strengthened our friendship.

Like many aha moments, the idea was sparked by a casual throwaway line.

In 2001, my best friend and I were on our usual long-distance phone call, chatting about everything from Hollywood gossip to our life goals, plus a new topic: My pregnancy

We talked every day, and I was sharing updates on the early stages. Even though she lived on the other side of the country in New Jersey, she was just as excited as I was for my impending bundle of joy — perhaps even more so because of her lifelong love of children.

During our conversation one of us said that we should build a house together. Although it was said casually at first, it was an idea that resonated with both of us. We started tossing it more seriously and quickly realized it was possible. It started to feel like we could really do something.

Buying a home allowed us to pool resources.

She had a young daughter and was a single mother who worked long hours as a publicity director at a record label. I was a soon-to-be single mom who was terrified of motherhood, both excited and terrified at the prospect of caring for something with two legs instead of four. We can raise our children together—pooling our resources, time, and money—while navigating home ownership.

Homeownership is probably the fastest way to build generational wealth, and buying a home with a friend cuts your costs in half, including property taxes and home repairs.

We discussed living in a duplex, which would allow us our own space and privacy with a built-in beast just a flight of stairs away. I thought this could be my forever home, which I could leave to my daughter.

When staying with a friend, communication is key.

At that point, my bestie and I had been living in the same state for about a decade, but in the summer of 2001, I sold my condo in California and moved back to my home state of New Jersey. It felt like putting the band back together. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I decided it would be best to go back to Jersey for home court advantage before the birth.

Buying a house with a friend is a great investment. To make it work, communication was key. We made a list of essential items for our new home. We were looking for a duplex with a similar interior layout, an attached garage, and a backyard. Additionally, we wanted to be close to Manhattan because of its commute, and many of the suburbs in New Jersey met that need.

The road to the perfect home was long.

We spent our weekend at open houses and saw many properties that had just about everything. However, I was nervous; It was the fall of 2001, and I was due in early 2002. I wanted us to settle into our new place before our baby arrived, without any fuss.

We finally found the perfect home in late fall in Maplewood, New Jersey. It was a duplex with two bedrooms upstairs and downstairs. The units even had enclosed porches that we could use as home offices. Maplewood was a beautiful artsy community just a few train stops from Manhattan.

We left less than a month before our due date.

Once we closed on the property, we had trouble getting the tenants out of the upper unit, which was my new home. Although they were given notice that the property had been sold, they could not find another place to stay. After they finally left, I had less than a month to spare before giving birth.

By buying a duplex together, we can give our kids a suburban lifestyle that would have been more difficult to achieve if either of us tried to do it on our own. And let’s face it, when you’re going through a tough time, you need your girls. Now my BFF lived downstairs. He was very good.

Living with my best friend was like an episode of ‘The Golden Girls’.

I remember almost wanting to give up breastfeeding because my milk wasn’t flowing. Once, we called for an all-night condolence in our kitchen that only a best friend would be willing to participate in.

Now, instead of a disjointed voice on a long-distance phone call, we were face to face at the kitchen table. She encouraged me to keep trying, and before the sun came up that morning, my baby was latching, and he continued to nurse for the next 18 months.

Their first few years together were like a sitcom — like “Golden Girls” with kids. I think my daughter’s first or second word was “down.”

Having a friend’s safety net made parenthood easier.

The moment she learned to walk, she wanted to run down the stairs to blend in with whatever was going on. There were always sleepovers downstairs. It would be full of kids with my bestie’s daughter and her friends, and of course, my little one wanted to be with the “big” girls. On Sundays, we would have dinner together between units.

Our Lucy and Ethel moments were spent trying to fight off the family of squirrels living in our walls or digging our cars out of waist-high snow in the winter. I left in 2005 to move back to Los Angeles — because of more than waist-deep snow — and we finally sold the house.

It was probably the best first few years I could have asked for as a new mom. Being able to share the hopes and fears of being a new mom and having the safety net of a friend at arm’s reach was invaluable.