A couple of times as a realtor I have had the opportunity to speak with several people mostly women with the complaint that their partner although capable of investing in real estate would rather buy cars or other liabilities than buy properties, probably as a result of ignorance or bad experience in the past. Speaking on the latter, yes! It can be very difficult to change one’s impression on something he/she has experienced the downside of. In this article, I have listed four (4) Ways to convince your spouse to invest in Real Estate
Don’t get me wrong, a degree of uncertainty is healthy in evaluating any real estate investment be it a land or a house, you name it. But being too conservative is no better than being reckless. Leaving money in cash results in a guaranteed loss of around 2% a year to inflation, making it the wrongest choice of all.
If your spouse fails to see the validity of building passive income through real estate investing, here’s the ultimate persuasion strategy to win them over, heart and soul.
1. Learn the Act of Persuasion
Lots of people are discouraged whenever someone tells them NO. If only they knew a little more about the art of persuasion then they would realize that any NO can easily be turned into a YES provided the right actions are taken.
Persuading your significant other to invest in a roof over your head shouldn’t be that hard, right? Yes, right!
You’ll never win this argument if you leave your spouse to his or her skepticism or assumptions. You’ll need to shift the entire framework of your conversation to reflect the juicy benefits of real estate investing, not their assumptions about it.
2. Change Perspective From Earning to Spending
Possibly, your spouse is looking at a prospective real estate deal through the lens of “spending” money. All they hear is “I want to take 1million of our money and buy something with it.” Which, of course, doesn’t strike them as investing but spending. The point is to earn money, not to spend it.
So to convince your spouse to invest in real estate, reframe the conversation to make it about generating extra income every month. Shift the conversation to be about the monthly cash flow you can expect, and what you and your partner should do with it.
Tap into their dreams, their hopes, their hobbies, and desires. Do they want to travel more? Cut back on their working hours to spend more time with the kids? Have more date nights? Ask them about it. “Hey babe, if we could generate 30% profit in 1year from the right property, what would you want to put it toward?” After which you can move your conversation from “Here’s why we should move our money into real estate,” to “Let’s discuss our target asset allocation, and how much of our portfolio we want in real estate.
3. Be Grounded and Well Informed
If you hope to shorten the process and get a positive response, take the pain to figure out everything related to acquiring the property first before you even make a request. That way, you would have shortened the buying time by half. And besides that, your spouse would see how serious you are when you show that you’re well informed, have carried out the necessary research and have asked the right questions to the right people.
4. Write it Down
Sometimes the best way to communicate with your partner doesn’t require words, because there’s a possibility of misinformation or someone not paying attention. Instead of appearing to be a nag about the issue, simply write it down. So you’ve told them once about it, now you need to give them subtle reminders about it in fun ways that don’t communicate pressure.
You can leave a sticky note on their mirror, send an email, or even text them about it. Writing things down is a great alternative when you have multiple items you need. It gives them something they can refer back to for clarity sake. Use these proven persuasive approaches to convince your spouse to invest in real estate and share your results with us in the comment section.