Investor · San Jose Ca · Member since 2020 · 125 posts · 115 votes
My wife is super pessimistic with things and worst case is the first thing to her mind about most things. I wan't to do a BRRRR but she has a hard time wrapping her head around the idea. Not sure how to get her on board and support it. When new at it, this stuff is stressful enough, I want her to be positive and supportive. Is that asking to much ?
My wife is super pessimistic with things and worst case is the first thing to her mind about most things. I wan't to do a BRRRR but she has a hard time wrapping her head around the idea. Not sure how to get her on board and support it. When new at it, this stuff is stressful enough, I want her to be positive and supportive. Is that asking to much ?
Your wife would probably tell us that she is cautious, conservative with money and responsible. She would tell us you are a dreamer who is overly optimistic. Try to understand her perspective. You think you have it all figured out, but you have not convinced her. She believes she has good reasons to doubt your strategy and she may be right!
My advice is do the following:
1. Show her the reason you want to do this. You are trying to setup your families financial future, so this is for the families long term benefit. Maybe the goal is early retirement or extra money so one of you can stay home with the kids. Whatever the reason, bring her into your shared vision.
2. Ask her to read a book on real estate investing. She may not be interested, so offer to read a book of her choice in exchange. In order to better understand each other, you both need to work at it. You can read or listen to a book together as a way to bond.
3. Talk to her about a short term reward of her choice after the successful investment. It could be a vacation, shopping trip, day at the spa, etc. Basically tell her if she comes along for the ride, each deal we get a reward. This is different than item 1, because it is a a short term benefit. Some people don't like investing, but maybe that reward can fund her passion, whatever that is.
4. Acknowledge all her concerns. Don't tell her she is wrong. Agree with everything she says and offer a plan to overcome her concerns. "Yes I am concerned we could be over budget, which is why I am putting 25% extra for miscellaneous in the budget." Appreciate her contribution. My wife balances me out, she doesn't hold me back. Get your mindset right around why she has concerns.
5. Have a backup plan. If she sees too much risk with BRRRR, then maybe turn key buy and hold is a better choice in the short term. My wife doesn't like major rehab projects, so I work within her comfort level. It may take baby steps. Start with a small project and prove you can do it. Her trust will grow as you prove success.
My wife is super pessimistic with things and worst case is the first thing to her mind about most things. I wan't to do a BRRRR but she has a hard time wrapping her head around the idea. Not sure how to get her on board and support it. When new at it, this stuff is stressful enough, I want her to be positive and supportive. Is that asking to much ?
Your wife would probably tell us that she is cautious, conservative with money and responsible. She would tell us you are a dreamer who is overly optimistic. Try to understand her perspective. You think you have it all figured out, but you have not convinced her. She believes she has good reasons to doubt your strategy and she may be right!
My advice is do the following:
1. Show her the reason you want to do this. You are trying to setup your families financial future, so this is for the families long term benefit. Maybe the goal is early retirement or extra money so one of you can stay home with the kids. Whatever the reason, bring her into your shared vision.
2. Ask her to read a book on real estate investing. She may not be interested, so offer to read a book of her choice in exchange. In order to better understand each other, you both need to work at it. You can read or listen to a book together as a way to bond.
3. Talk to her about a short term reward of her choice after the successful investment. It could be a vacation, shopping trip, day at the spa, etc. Basically tell her if she comes along for the ride, each deal we get a reward. This is different than item 1, because it is a a short term benefit. Some people don't like investing, but maybe that reward can fund her passion, whatever that is.
4. Acknowledge all her concerns. Don't tell her she is wrong. Agree with everything she says and offer a plan to overcome her concerns. "Yes I am concerned we could be over budget, which is why I am putting 25% extra for miscellaneous in the budget." Appreciate her contribution. My wife balances me out, she doesn't hold me back. Get your mindset right around why she has concerns.
5. Have a backup plan. If she sees too much risk with BRRRR, then maybe turn key buy and hold is a better choice in the short term. My wife doesn't like major rehab projects, so I work within her comfort level. It may take baby steps. Start with a small project and prove you can do it. Her trust will grow as you prove success.
Good advice @Joe Splitrock ! I like it. We are in escrow now on a turn key new house. Hoping that all goes well and that will ease her mind a bit and we can take another baby step in the right direction on the next one.
My first advice would be to invest her way to start. and it sounds like closing on a turn key is doing just that.
I don't know your wife to tell you why she's not seeing the light, but this is what my wife and I mutually experienced:
Once you have a history of operating income and expenses to use for reference, decide what it would look like if you had a mortgage at 25, 50, 75 LTV and the number of properties that corresponds. The growth trajectory of saving up down payments compared to buying cash is not hugely significant. Once you two are mutually disappointed with how long it will take you to be financially independent, explore value add and then BRRRR.
Debt is impatience expressed financially, so give her a chance to get impatient.
@Todd Rasmussen It was tough to get her approval on the turn key. I am eager and wanting to jump in. I may have to be patient for a bit and hopefully she will see the light when we have a good experience with the turn key. Her mental block is she doesn't view any of it as an investment for our future. She views it as me being impulsive and reckless with money. In her defense I don't have the best track record with saving money. I have expensive hobbies. Trying to make it clear to her that this is four our future and not the same as buying a motorcycle or something.
It's harder to walk uphill but you can still do it. Why not give up your expensive hobbies to demonstrate commitment to responsible investing? After proving otherwise, it'll take bigger and more sustained examples of you being disciplined with money to overcome a past of not so much. Throw yourself into real estate, especially acquisitions, and you'll find a house you can acquire for little to nothing. Money is a factor, but if you can get good enough, or build enough bridges you can find yourself a deal that you can trade a weekend toy for. Can't think of anything that would show your new frame of mind more strongly than that. Good luck!
@Todd Rasmussen pretty good Ideal. She knows how passionate I am about the mtb/moto addictions. May give me some leverage with her selling some of them.
Going through a similar situation. My wife lived through me starting me first company. I think my wife sees TE investment as going backwards and going though startup again. Slowly talking her off the ledge.
@Jeffrey Evans Show her the vision. First make a plan together. Maybe then the BRRR might not be for both of you but if she gets on board and understands the vision, then together you guys can do something else maybe even better. You have to make your plans and goals together to understand each other and so that way your on the same page.
@Jeffrey Evans I am no relationship coach, but here's the thing. You are asking her to be ok with something that is coming up for her, that you are not listening to.
Her emotions might be telling you, I don't feel like this is a safe idea.
If that's the case, try and find a smaller risk you can take. In my opinion, a BRRRR is very risky for your first property because you are trying to do a flip and a rental in one. There's more to mess up there. Where as if maybe you got one rental from a turnkey company, you reduce your risk significantly, she gets on board or is more ok with that.
Then you take that to show her that its not that bad (assuming you do your math right) and then you move to a BRRRR!
This can be a very slippery slope getting everyone onboard. I would respect her fear and concerns and really break down to see what is causing the concern. It is probably a story that she is telling herself but the reality is if you do not address it now it will not go away. As soon as something goes wrong with a deal it will be a "See I told you" and will be a bigger problem. I suggest you sit down and outline your plan and timeline, best case, worse case scenarios and write it all out. then have her do the same and work towards a solution instead of just trying to convince her of your way. I tried your way and it didn't work well.. at about my 35th home my wife told me the next house I buy better be nice because I will be living in it... soooo dont think that just because you buy a few homes you are over the issues or challenges of their concern. Address it early and maybe sit down with a coach or mentor and talk it thru. She may have some valid reasons that you are not seeing that someone else can help with.
Just to make things perfectly clear, do you earn all the money to fund your expensive hobbies? Or is some of the money she brings in going to fund your passions? And where's the money for the real estate investing going to be initially coming from?
I was on the same boat as you not to long ago. I made sure to turn on bigger pockets as background noise. I also listened to ed mylett, Tom bilyeu, Luis Howes and many other motivational speakers and gradually i brained washed her in positive way lol .. Something else that helped me was having the knowledge to answer whatever question it was that she would ask. Making her trust you and feel confident in you will go a long way. Be patient and trust the process. Good luck and wish you the best 👌
@Steve Rozenberg I like you approach. I need her to sit down and discuss all her fears and exactly what she is worried about going wrong. That way I can coach her on how we minimize them ect.
@Jim K. I make the money for my hobbies. And I put in all the money for the first turn key property I am in escrow on now. She makes decent money also but I knew she wouldn't want to contribute.
@Nicholas L. We are ok Not a ton of savings ect but strong secure jobs even during covid and all. She wants a place in Tahoe but they are super expensive. She tells me if I can buy a second place as an investment we can buy a place in Tahoe. She doesn't put the relationship together that the places I am getting are 1-200k not 800k like Tahoe. Even if worse case scenario and we had to pay the mortgage it would be manageable on our income vs a Tahoe place is a much larger mortgage.
I started house hacking 6ish years ago and met my girlfriend 4 years ago. She was also skeptical about the process. After I sold the first house she saw me working on, I bought her a new laptop with some of the proceeds. She became a little more involved with the next one, and we started living together when it was finished. Sold that, now we're doing a house hack together in a two flat. We spent the weekend painting the bathroom together.
House hacking isn't her favorite thing, but she is now on board with rental properties. One thing that definitely helped this time was having rental income put directly to the mortgage. We pay $9 a month on this place, and when we move out it should cash flow well. Even though I do most of the work, she has input. She helped pick out this place, helped with kitchen design, and budgeted improvements with me. We're a team, and I try to include her in whatever she wants to help out with.
Good luck, I'm in the same boat as you. We have one rental property that we bought 5 years ago and she doesn't really see the benefit of it. She sees more time away from the family (I self manage) even though it totals to probably 40 hours a year. She wants to wait until our kids are a little older before we increase our portfolio so we aren't stretched so thin with our time. Maybe the problem isn't with REI in general but something else much like my case.
Show her how many of those $1-200k house you need to buy to pay for a tahoe house. Maybe then she’ll be interested in helping you build the portfolio with a shared goal in mind.
You need to speak her language about some things she has done taking a risk and how it has worked out. When you do that she’ll start to understand what you are trying to do. Also have her read about it, do research and ask other people. Sometimes that neutral person is the most influential.. Everything in life has a risk we just don’t always think about that so don’t push her because she’ll be like a teenager and rebel. It will work out. 
I would tell her you are making this investment for your children’s college funds. You only are trying to get someone else to purchase this home to sell later for your children. Over a short period of time she will come around.