How to Get Your Partner on Board with Real Estate Investing

Life by Design

Jessilyn and Brian Persson address a topic from their Riches, Relationships, and Real Estate program on today’s episode. They explore what happens when one-half of a partnership is not on board with real estate investing and why it’s beneficial to be a unified whole when dealing with your portfolio and goals. Jessilyn and Brian relate experiences that have given them personal insight into how best to approach real estate discussions with a hesitant partner, and conversation skills discussed in their Discover Define Design Framework episodes play a part.

Real estate investment and wealth building are great opportunities for a couple, but if one or the other partner is hesitant or not on board, success and growth can be limited. Jessilyn and Brian experienced an imbalance in investment goals in their own marriage but overcame it and realized even greater growth together. The takeaways shared in this episode - have the conversation, normalize real estate investing, and get educated together - come from their understanding of how to communicate effectively and how to apply relationship skills and outside tools to bring the less-eager partner on board with real estate investing.

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:10] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We support couples in achieving their wealth goals by sharing our journey of overcoming barriers to build our financial empire.

Brian Persson: [00:00:21] With our extensive personal experience and increasing demand from couples seeking alignment to invest confidently in real estate, we created the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program to help couples achieve their wealth goals.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:35] Our topic today is how to get your partner on board with real estate investing. We got approached by so many different couples at different conferences and even over Zoom asking us how we do it together.

Brian Persson: [00:00:50] Yeah, a common problem we see just about everywhere. Even people who are invested into real estate, we still get questions. And it's like, how do I get my partner on board with real estate? And they actually own investments.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:05] Yeah. So why is it important that your partner is on board with investing, as opposed to maybe it just being a solo mission?

Brian Persson: [00:01:14] Well, our personal story is that I resisted the real estate investing in the beginning.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:20] He did.

Brian Persson: [00:01:20] Yeah. And, uh, what happened? We were unable to buy. We were unable to buy what we wanted or perhaps what was a better performing portfolio. And then when we actually got on board with each other and we were on the same page and wanting to invest in real estate, our portfolio tripled basically in the course of a couple of years and became a lot easier as well. So it just increases your bond between the two people and the relationship ultimately will increase your overall wealth.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:53] Yeah. Another great thing about being aligned with your partner is it opens ideas that you may not see singularly, like the old adage that two heads are better than one. It's true. I mean, how many things did I point out that you may not have caught the same way I did? And then once we talked it through, we both had a better understanding of what it was.

Brian Persson: [00:02:14] Yeah, yeah, we can constantly bounce ideas back and forth off of each other, make sure that they're sane and they're not going to sink your financial empire.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:24] Yes. So the first takeaway is to have the conversation. So make space for it. And book time specifically. In previous episodes, as you may have heard, we're very passionate about having the conversation, communication and booking it in our calendar to make sure we're heard and we're actually open and available to listen to that specific thing or topic at that time.

Brian Persson: [00:02:53] If your partner is not on board with real estate and you're trying to get them on board with real estate, this is a big thing. Booking that conversation. Have it over date night if you need to, but you need to be consistent about it because otherwise your real estate investing future is going to be happenstance. It might happen if the conversations happen to happen and it might not happen. You got to be diligent and you got to be committed to having those conversations. So put it in your calendar.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:22] Yeah, absolutely. In terms of the conversation, I mean, I remember the first conversation I think we probably ever had around mortgages and home equity line of credits, and interest rates and investing and all that. And we were only dating for maybe three months, I think. And I don't know if you were being nice or I dragged you along to my family reunion that that summer, and we were just kind of out walking on a night because, of course, it's so beautiful in British Columbia, where we were. And you were telling me all about the mortgage you currently had and the home equity line of credit on it and the interest rates. And I looked at you and I said, well, if your HELOC interest rate is lower than your mortgage, why don't you pull from there, pay down your mortgage, and then you have the option to pay off your HELOC at any time, whereas you're locked in with the mortgage and your response?

Brian Persson: [00:04:18] Why didn't I do that sooner?

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:20] Yeah, it was just something you didn't think about, right?

Brian Persson: [00:04:23] No, no, part of that is just financial education. Having conversations with your partner will get you both financially educated, because you're just gonna go deeper into the space of real estate investing by having those conversations. In this particular instance, just never thinking about why would you pay a lower interest rate when you're borrowing from a revolving line of credit? It made no sense to me, right? Don't borrow from credit is kind of like the thing that I grew up with back then. And so to borrow from credit and pay off a nice stable mortgage, or at least that's what I thought it was at that time, made absolutely no sense.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:05] Yeah. And then I kind of called it out and it was just more kind of I was curious what your reasoning was behind it, but that in the end saved interest on the entire purchase.

Brian Persson: [00:05:15] Saved interest, and it led to other things. By having those conversa...