Spouse support for investing

Investor Mindset
13yFollow

Spouse support for investing

Bill Horton
Real Estate Broker · Canby, OR · Member since 2012 · 127 posts · 37 votes

Have any of you had to deal with your spouse not being fully supportive of your real estate investing?

This is a big hurdle for me to get started with investing in real estate. My family has been investing in real estate and construction business for generations. Business and investing is what I was raised around and I am very aware of the benefits.

My wife has been raised believing that a corporate pension or 401k will be just fine for retirement. We have both read the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and loved it. We paid off all of our debt besides our house. It's all great except for the fact that she agrees with Dave that mutual funds will be a great investment as "Risk" in investing terrifies her.

I don't know if I'm really getting to the point here... Basically, she likes the idea of buy and hold real estate investing when I talk about it, but she will always find a reason why it is too risky, "not the right time for us" or not possible for us because of funding... No matter what options I explain.

I love her very much and would love to get her on board with my plan. She even has a ton of experience and knowledge with property management, but unfortunately hated it.

Have any of you had to deal with this before? How did you handle it and how can you change someone mentality when they are stubborn about it? Books about investing probably won't interest her,, so not really an option.

Sorry for the long post... Any advice is appreciated.

0Reply
81 views

Most Popular Reply

Rob K.
Investor · Southeast, MI · Member since 2012 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
13y

Dave Ramsey is a huge fan of real estate and owns many houses. He has said on his show that he has bought and sold over 1,000. He is just anti-debt.

Mutual funds can be just as risky. Most 401K's took huge hits in 2008 and are finally now recovering.

Maybe tell your wife to spend more time in the kitchen and leave the investing up to you. (just kidding)

3Reply
See this reply in the discussion

27 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Kevin Schermerhorn
    Richland, WA · Member since 2013 · 18 posts · 0 votes
    13y

    Bill Horton I agree, it can be a challenge to get our spouses on board with our vision. It's taken several years for my wife to warm up to the idea of me leaving my job, where I will never advance, and jump into REI full time.

    We have a two year old daughter and a son on the way next month, and they definitely factored into our decision. However, it basically boiled down to my wife and I wanting a better life for our family. We figured it much better to sacrifice now, while they're still young, rather than me work a 9-5 for the next 30 years and miss out being there for them just about every day. My parents, and my wife's, all lived that life and were/are mostly unhappy - just not a fun road for anyone.

    The "sacrifice now, reap the rewards later" mentality is tough, but it does pay off - I think you're right in wanting to invest money now to use later on a home of your own. Absolutely nothing wrong with gaining assets to pay on a liability.

    Good Luck - I hope your wife sees your side and you guys can come to an agreement.

    0Reply
  • Patrick G.
    Abingdon, MD · Member since 2013 · 193 posts · 60 votes
    13y

    I could be completely wrong here. But I think the problem is that she agrees with Dave Ramsey, and wants to follow the baby steps, and you don't.

    You haven't really stated in too much detail what you are planning on doing in real estate. But I'm assuming it's a flip or a buy and hold with something like a 80% LTV loan. While you still have a loan on your house.

    What you are planning on doing is so completely off track and opposite of what Dave Ramsey teaches on the radio for 3 hours every week day. What you are planning on doing is exactly what Dave Ramsey went bankrupt doing, and he's currently writting a new book about 'his story' and talking it up on the radio.

    So bottom line, if she is listening to that radio program, you are out of luck. Have you ever listened to the radio program? Dave Ramsey is a really good speaker, he's charismatic, funny, logical, wise, he's got that slight southern accent. I'm sure your a nice guy, but that's hard to compete with.

    On one hand she has this millionaire on the radio saying "Debt is bad, ummkay" and on the other hand she has this guys who leaves his socks on the floor saying he wants to take out an $80k loan.

    That said, I'm in the same boat. I like Dave Ramsey, God bless the guy, but I don't agree with him on everything, and I'm not following his baby steps 100%. But right now we are, like you, debt free except the house. We just went through 4 years of hell, getting out of 50k in debt. So for me to turn around and tell my wife I want to take out 80k in "good debt" is crazy talk.

    So I am starting small, with my slush money, investing in tax liens. Hopefully one of those turns into a debt free little row home.

    I just did a quick search on Portland's craigslist and there are plenty of mobile homes for sale under $10k. Could you start on one of those, debt free. If my assumption is correct. (Which it probably is not) then once you start talking to your wife about going into real estate debt free, she will be more open to the topic.

    Worst case scenerio, she won't budge from the Dave Ramsey program, so you drink the cool aid, get on the DR bandwagon, go crazy and pay off your house in 7 or 8 years. Once you do that, Dave Ramsey says invest in real estate. So then you invest in real estate, and she can't really argue.

    1Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free