Couple Goals: Navigating Real Estate Investment Decisions With Your Significant Other

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While you may want to dive headfirst into real estate investing, there’s no guarantee your partner wants to do the same. Getting your significant other—the most important person on your real estate investing team—on board with your investment dreams can feel like an uphill battle. 

Your partner may want to stick to traditional income streams, while you may have big plans for generating passive income. This is a common dilemma for many aspiring property investors who had their investment epiphany after entering a committed relationship.

It can be easy to feel held back as an investor when your partner hasn’t bought into the idea. Here, we’ll discuss seven steps to take if you want to earn your significant other’s support in becoming a real estate investor.

1. Understand Your Partner’s Financial Perspective

Before trying to convince your significant other to invest with you or support you in investing in real estate, you must understand their financial perspective.

We all come into relationships with certain money beliefs and risk tolerance levels. How you manage your income and risk tolerance is partially influenced by your early life experiences. These behaviors around money can be difficult to change, especially if there’s no reason to.

In many cases, one person in the relationship is more risk averse than the other. Differing risk profiles can lead to disagreements on investing shared savings. As you prepare to craft your message to your partner, you must understand this.

2.  Do the Work Upfront

Before bringing up the topic of investing to your partner, make sure you know your stuff. Dig deep into real estate by networking, reading books, and studying your chosen market. Hone in on an investment strategy, and develop a muscle for analyzing deals. 

Establishing expertise in a certain area naturally allows you to speak about it with confidence. If you know exactly what you need to do to be a successful real estate investor, you’ll have a better chance of convincing your partner to come on board. 

It’s normal to want to venture into this journey side by side with your significant other. But it’s OK if they aren’t ready or as enthusiastic as you are about investing. Focus on doing your part first, and embrace the idea that it may take some time before your partner buys in.

3. Have a Proven Track Record of Following Through

If your partner is on the fence about investing with you, it may be because you’ve mentioned goals in the past and haven’t followed through. 

Every year, we set goals around lifestyle changes we’d like to make, financial milestones we’d like to reach, and new journeys we’d like to embark on. However, few of us actually make good on what we say we are going to do.

While there is no way to guarantee every investment will be a success, you can show your partner that you’re committed to the journey by keeping your word at home. Make it a habit to follow through on everything you say you’re going to do. 

If you say you’re going to cook dinner, do it. Want to wake up early? Get up when your alarm goes off. Over time, this subconsciously shows your significant other that you are worth trusting, so when it comes time to invest together, it’ll be a no-brainer.

4. Share What You’re Learning

Once you’ve acquired some knowledge on your own, invite your partner to start learning with you. Ask them to tag along the next time you attend a networking event or seminar. Share blog posts, podcasts, and other sources of information you find interesting. 

Encouraging your partner to learn about real estate investing from other experts can pique their interest if they previously had none and help them develop their own ideas around the subject. If your significant other is more risk averse than you are, be sure to give them plenty of time to do their own research. Also, come ready to handle objections with your own research and supporting evidence.

Real estate investing can be intimidating for someone who’s never done it before, so it may take some time for your partner to get comfortable with the idea. Be patient with them when they express doubts, and look for opportunities to discuss new insights together. 

Remember: Not everyone wants to be a real estate investor

There are some people out there who just don’t want to invest in real estate. You can try persuading them all you want, but they just might not have the same passions as you.

That’s perfectly fine. Date night doesn’t need to turn into binging podcasts or cranking out analyses on your new rental property spreadsheet (although that would be pretty cool). The goal is to get your partner to support you in your endeavors—anything else is an added bonus.

Rest assured that your significant other will take notice as your enthusiasm for real estate grows. Even if they aren’t interested in physically investing with you, seeing how passionate you are might just be enough to pull on their heartstrings.

5. Know How It Will Help You Achieve Your Long-Term Financial Goals

This can be a game changer for you and your partner. By connecting the goals you’ve set as a couple to the goals you have in mind as an investor, you can secure your partner’s support for the long term. 

Consider the financial goals you’ve established as a couple or as a family, and create a narrative around how you can reach them faster through real estate investing. Focus on articulating how real estate deals can support your overall financial goals, whether they are to build wealth, generate passive income for retirement, or fund your children’s education.

6. Create a Detailed Plan of Action

Once you’ve warmed your partner up to the idea of investing in real estate together, create a plan of action they feel comfortable with. Developing a step-by-step investment plan will help your partner understand your thought process and reassure them you’re ready for any bumps along the way. 

Be sure to include your logic behind analyzing deals, the investment strategy you plan to follow, and why it’s a good idea to invest in your chosen market. The more you explain the reasoning behind your decisions, the fewer doubts your partner will have. 

You want to be especially detailed in the financial section of your investment plan. Real estate finances can be confusing for someone who isn’t familiar with the industry. Consider how current income, existing assets, credit scores, and past financial challenges may affect your borrowing ability as a couple. 

7. Don’t Get Stuck in Analysis Paralysis: Take Action

Once you and your partner are on the same page about investing together and have agreed on an investment plan, it’s time to take action. Many real estate investors experience analysis paralysis, which limits their success in the long run. 

While real estate investments should be carefully considered, they often require you to make quick decisions. Good deals go fast, and market conditions are constantly changing. If you indulge in overthinking and indecision, you may miss out on great investment opportunities.

If you’re having difficulty taking the first step in your investment journey as a couple, consider these tips:

Take calculated risks

As a first-time investor, you may want to plan out all your deals from start to finish. However, you’ll quickly realize that’s not always possible. No investment is entirely risk-free, so there will always be some level of ambiguity. 

The key is to develop a tolerance for uncertainty in potential deals without throwing your financial goals out the window. This allows you to take calculated risks that are in alignment with your overall investment plan.

Start small

After putting in hours of work studying real estate investment strategy, convincing your significant other to come on board, and developing a detailed investment plan, you may think you need to go big or go home. But that’s not necessarily true. 

Start with manageable investments that allow you to gain experience and build confidence. It’s best to start with a small, low-risk deal so you can see a return on investment and validate your decision-making skills with your partner.

Do something

Once you’ve conducted your due diligence and identified a viable opportunity, act decisively. Don’t let fear of failure or uncertainty paralyze you from taking the next step. 

If taking the first step seems overwhelming, break it down into smaller, more doable tasks. 

For example, if your overall goal is to buy a distressed property within three months, set a smaller goal of driving around the neighborhood every Saturday to identify abandoned or foreclosed homes. By creating smaller goals, you hold yourself accountable for making at least some progress in the right direction. 

Final Thoughts

Investing in real estate with your partner can be a lifelong, rewarding journey that not only improves your financial future, but also strengthens your relationship. While it may seem difficult at first, bringing your spouse on as an investment partner is possible even when you have different opinions on how you should spend your money. In fact, different money management skills can help strengthen your investment decisions.

Try your best to understand your partner’s financial perspective and view their opposition as insight. If your partner is particularly risk averse, it may take a little bit longer for them to buy into the idea. Remain patient throughout the process so both you and your partner can reap the benefits in the future.

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