Should You Consider Buying Your Childhood Home?

The stairs creaked in Jen Gorgano’s childhood home. Recalling those sounds makes Ms. Gorgano smile. “Growing up, we would always know who was running up and down the steps by how loud it was,” she said.

The creak is still there. So is Ms. Gorgano. She is in the process of buying the four-bedroom house in Commack, N.Y., from her mother, who now divides her time between Florida and her partner’s Long Island condo.

“Financially it made sense,” said Ms. Gorgano, 25, a speech pathologist, who is buying the house for about $600,000 with her boyfriend and co-buyer Mike Stillman. “My mom gave us a price. It’s less than what she would get if she was selling it to a stranger,” Ms. Gorgano added. “She could sell if for another $100,000. She’s definitely doing us a favor.”

Some first-time buyers are taking the “starter home” idea to another level. They’re purchasing the houses they really did start in: their parents’ houses.

“We’ve seen this more in the last few years,” said Bob Driscoll, a senior vice president and the director of residential lending at Rockland Trust, a bank with branches in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. “The one thing that’s clear in this market is that people have to look at different ways to attain homeownership.”