Sadly, my dreams are quickly dashed.

“My circumstances aren’t quite right for a shared purchase at the moment,” he replies. Good luck with your hunt. Regards, Dan.”

Argghh. Is this the co-buying brush-off equivalent of “It’s not you, it’s me”? I move on and target Dan3000, an events manager for an IT company in the City. He says he’s “genuine”, looking for something “Georgian”, and has a £10,000 deposit. Perfect, he could be my Mr Darcy.

I dash off an e-mail. “How serious are you? How much money do you have? What’s your number?” A month later, there is still no answer. Nor have I heard back from “Chimanga”, who I had contacted requesting a personal e-mail address so that we could correspond off-site.

She has bravely posted a picture of herself dressed as a bridesmaid. Born in South Africa but now living near Basingstoke, the 27-year-old says she is a “rather chatty, red-wine drinking graphic designer”; she describes herself as an “all-round happy bunny”.

Hmm. Although, according to the Halifax, the number of first-time buyers (or FTBs, as we are referred to by lenders) hit an all-time low last year, my online experience so far seems to indicate that there is not yet a critical mass of members all looking seriously in the same area for the same sort of property.

Maybe it’s time to put myself about a bit, so to speak.

I try www.buyingtogether.org.uk and www.co-buywithme.co.uk; the latter claims 30 new people are registering a week. I am one of the 81% of members who are aged between 20 and 40, with an average income of between £21,000 and £30,000. But with my personal hits still only in single figures, I’m wondering if I need to work on my profile.

I arrange to meet the man behind www.co-buywithme.co.uk. Perhaps he can help with my technique. After a few red-faced incidents sparked by accidentally chatting up strangers, I eventually locate Theo Michaels, 29 (enjoys snowboarding and surfing), in a bar in the City. It is hot, crowded, Robbie Williams is blaring, and we fortify ourselves with two cold beers. Michaels, who founded his site in April, believes, like Cohn, that such sites will transform the first-time buyer market. The idea came to Michaels when he introduced two friends, Anna Nason and Stephen Cheliotis, both of whom felt despondent about ever being able to buy. They met at a party in 2003 and bought a flat together in July 2004.

Nason, 32, a charity worker for The Sick Children’s Trust, and Cheliotis, 28, a director at advertising agency Superbrands, each put down a £5,000 deposit on a £191,000 two-bed flat in Crouch End, north London. The joint mortgage and bills total £850 a month, less than they were previously paying in rent.

“I don’t work for a charity for big bucks,” says Nason. “It was impossible to buy on my own in London, even in places where you wouldn’t want to live. We were lucky to find each other.”

Their strategy has paid off. The flat has recently been revalued at £260,000 and they now plan to remortgage and withdraw enough equity to each buy a home of their own, keeping the original joint property as a buy-to-let.

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