REI is aTeam Sport but start at Home ...
If you are in a committed relationship and you are just starting with real estate investing I suggest you do one thing before everything else.
You need to sit down with your significant other and have a long talk about what it means from a time, a resource and financial commitment. Real estate investing is truly a wonderful way to build a family foundation of wealth. But if you don’t have this long talk things can go sideways quickly and you can find yourself worse off.
Remember as you are starting out it will take more commitment than you expect. It will take longer than you hope and the small trickles of cash flow will not turn into meaningful streams for a while.
If you are not both 100% committed together and on the same page you can quickly find yourself in a stressful situation. You will have months where surprises happen and cash flow falls short, you will have deals fall apart and if you are not both bought in things will go south fast.
The team player you need on your side most is your significant other. I have heard of people going it alone but these situations have to be stressful as surprise happen all the time (both good and bad surprises for the record).
I also recommend that you take at least one night a month to focus on what each of you have going on in the business. Feel free to do it weekly if you like but at least monthly.
If you are the active person and you have the support of a significant other that is more passive you need to over communicate or your rock solid foundation can crumble. I put 100% of the ownership on the active partner to make the passive partner aware about what is going on (good or bad).
I have seen more people start out all guns a blazing only to be taken down by the one rock they thought they could count on.
Get team commitment at Home FIRST.
Communicate, Plan and Execute and both of you will be better off for it!!!
Good Investing
You need to sit down with your significant other and have a long talk about what it means from a time, a resource and financial commitment. Real estate investing is truly a wonderful way to build a family foundation of wealth. But if you don’t have this long talk things can go sideways quickly and you can find yourself worse off.
Remember as you are starting out it will take more commitment than you expect. It will take longer than you hope and the small trickles of cash flow will not turn into meaningful streams for a while.
If you are not both 100% committed together and on the same page you can quickly find yourself in a stressful situation. You will have months where surprises happen and cash flow falls short, you will have deals fall apart and if you are not both bought in things will go south fast.
The team player you need on your side most is your significant other. I have heard of people going it alone but these situations have to be stressful as surprise happen all the time (both good and bad surprises for the record).
I also recommend that you take at least one night a month to focus on what each of you have going on in the business. Feel free to do it weekly if you like but at least monthly.
If you are the active person and you have the support of a significant other that is more passive you need to over communicate or your rock solid foundation can crumble. I put 100% of the ownership on the active partner to make the passive partner aware about what is going on (good or bad).
I have seen more people start out all guns a blazing only to be taken down by the one rock they thought they could count on.
Get team commitment at Home FIRST.
Communicate, Plan and Execute and both of you will be better off for it!!!
Good Investing
Comments (3)
Speak the truth! Great post.
Shae Bynes, almost 13 years ago
Is definitely better to have your wife or significant other wholly on board. It does make investing much easier and there are less surprises.
Account Closed, almost 13 years ago
Great advice, Michael. I've heard many stories over the years of one spouse sabotaging the business because they were never fully on board.
Joshua Dorkin, almost 13 years ago