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Your Signficant Other Hates Real Estate Investing – Now What?

Shae Bynes
3 min read

It’s pretty common for spouses or significant others to be really nervous and potentially downright unsupportive when you begin your quest as a wildly successful real estate investor. I’m blessed to have a spouse who is my partner in business and we work very well together, but this is not always the case.

I’m not a family or marriage counselor nor am I a psychologist, however I’d still like to share some advice on this topic and you can take it for whatever its worth to you.  Here goes:

(1) Understand the concerns

It’s really important to understand and respect others’ feelings. Ask him or her what the concerns are. It could be a number of things. For example:

  • She fears losing significant amounts of money and jeopardizing the family’s finances
  • He is concerned you’ll take too much time away from the family and household responsibilities
  • She thinks that you’re just doing it because your friend Joe is doing it too
  • He doesn’t believe you’ll follow through because you’ve started and quit things in the past

If you understand his or her concerns, you’ll be able to work together to address them.

(2) Discuss family goals

I hope you’ve already determined WHY you want to be a successful real estate investor. That “why” is of critical importance and your significant other should be a part of it. If you’ve never discussed the goals you want to achieve as a family, now is a great time to do so. Once you know the “why”, it may become clearer why real estate investing should be key part of how to get where you want to go and together you can make some financial goals for the investing. Assuming the idea is to generate long term wealth and passive income source, it is easy to “work the numbers” together and see the benefits of real estate investing long term. Of course if the primary idea is to generate faster cash in the short term, there are strategies to accomplish that as well. Regardless of the intent, it should all be connected to your personal and family “why.”

(3) Discuss the financial impact on the family

Your real estate investing efforts may require some low monthly costs as you’re working towards doing your first deal. Be sure to demonstrate how the family budget can support these costs (and if for some reason it can’t, better be prepared to put in a few extra hours to raise the money or find a way to reduce your personal expenses).

(4) Discuss how you’ll balance business and family/couple time

Make sure to set some parameters on your time – make a schedule and keep it. Even though my husband is very supportive and works right along with me, I have a stronger tendency to work long hours late into the night and we had to agree on a time the business shuts off so that we can spend quality time together.  Sometimes you may be working on something that will take you off your schedule — if so, make sure that you consult your significant other regarding the break of schedule and the time that you’ll need to finish your business.

(5) Provide updates as often as your significant other wants them

In some cases, your significant other may simply not understand real estate investing and may be more comfortable if you share as you’re learning and share as you’re doing. In other cases, he or she may have absolutely no interest at all in hearing about your real estate investing. In those cases, only share the good news and pay close attention to item #6 below!

(6) Be consistent and hustle to get some early successes

There’s simply nothing better than good news and results to help get your significant other onboard!  Take massive and consistent action and get some early successes that will make him or her proud…perhaps even excited!

Don’t be discouraged when you feel like there is a lack of support in the household for your real estate investing.  If you feel strongly about being a real estate investor, invest the time in the steps above, maintain a positive attitude, and lead by example.  The only way to lose is to quit.

Photo cred: joegreer2007

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.