Partner is slowing me down!

Hey guys, I am 34 and my wife is 31. I love property investing and developing and I am wanting to build a large portfolio. We currently have four quality IP's with enough equity to get a couple more, but wifey is really scared and is being quite obstructive in moving forward. To be honest, it's been a long slog to get her to where we are. Has anyone else experienced this and what did you do to get around it?

 

Why is she scared and what kind of risk management/ exit plan you have if things go wrong?

Before we buy a property, hubby always ask why that one, how we will recover if things go wrong and many other difficult questions. It took me more than 3 months to have him agree on accessing equity from our PPOR (albeit a bit late after APRA changes). I think it's only fair that he understand the numbers because he is signing his name on it. It should take as long as it takes until he feels ok with it, unless I'm taking all the risk and he has nothing to do with it.

 

What's her reasons for being obstructive in moving forward?

You may have to compromise if you can't convince her to believe in you 100%
There is more to life than property investing.

 

Well we have some decent cash reserves and the properties are pretty much neutrally geared, we have good tenants and so I am fairly comfortable. She is scared of the amount of debt we have, well over a million and she just cannot fathom getting into more debt. It's taken me five years to get her here and I have let soooo many great deals go that I am seriously losing sleep over after what the Sydney market has done in the last 24 months! It's frustrating and I just wish she was a bit more interested in building the portfolio.

 

Yeah I know, it really has been a compromise. I mean we lead a pretty good life, we travel and eat out regularly and what not. I just really want to build the portfolio and it is such a constant battle, so frustrating.

 

Hey, my hubby and I had similar issues. He was the one that started us on the investment road but he wanted to stop and I was the one determined to carry on. It was a very real problem for us as he was very worried and determined that I was going to land us in serious crap. I don't want to share too much personal information about it, other than to say he did back down eventually. I think he must have realised that we were in a good place, and I wasn't actually suggesting anything to put us at real risk. At the time I did all the usual stuff re pointing out how the numbers work, how the contingency plan would work etc. These days I do the loans and properties in my own name and don't even talk to him much about it, and he feels less exposed. Of course he likes the good news stories when I'm putting the rents up etc. Hopefully you can get it all sorted, pm me if I can help further.

Forgot to say, I chatted to Terry W on this forum a little about it and he said it's quite common for men apparently to be more cautious than the women. Not that it's relevant here but it did help me at the time.

 

File for divorce, you don't need that kind of negativity lol only joking. I agree with what en710 said. You need to explain what the rewards could be and also show an exit strategy if things were to go bad.

 

I have had similar issues...much worse than yours if you have 4 ip's together.

Get a new wife...

 

Have you sat down and worked through the numbers and each put your respective positions across?

Sometimes a more conservative voice is good. It stopped friends buying up big in mining boom towns a couple of years back.

 

Debt can be a very scary thing for some people. What if you sat down with her and mapped out the future benefits financially to you as a couple say in 5 10 15 and 20 years. Is she a visual person? Sometimes people need to see things on paper, graphs charts etc before they get it. Use conservative CG figures show her historical growth in the areas you are invested. Some people just need to "see" it and can't visualise concepts.

 

Lol naa she would probably take the best ones if I did that haha. The usual process is fight, argue, stop talking, beg, plead, explain, beg a little more and then finally she says ok. God help me if one of these deals goes bad

 

I'm hearing ya. And I haven't even started. My missus isn't to bad though. Usually backs me with my decisions.

 

She actually is starting to get it after our Dee Why property has performed really well. But she is reluctant to show enthusiasm because she is worried it may lead to more properties lol. I have always done the maths and showed her projections but she never really wants to entertain it. She just wants to focus on paying the money back instead of borrowing more.

 

Just say to her let's skip the fights and arguments and you agree with me lol

 

Yeah I have, and luckily the mining towns never really appealed to me. I am a blue chip capital city kind of investor.

 

You may introduce her to some female investors or other investor's female partners.
Once she gets into the circle, understanding what other people doing (more debts?), everything will be fine.

 

Yeah true, it might be worth getting her into some property investing seminars or something to mingle with some like minded peeps....

 

Then I don't know what the answer is.

Financial problems growing up? My partner had that which has made her a bit more risk averse than me. Which is perhaps just as well

 

LOL OK alright you say"if push comes to shove and we pay back all our debt we are still $X000000 in front. So if we get this one we will be this far in front" Seriously it's a hard one good luck with it. Maybe time will work or bring her along o a meetup and she can discover that you are not some kind of mutant investor and there are lots of ordinary people doing AMAZING things with property.

 

Yeah you could say a conservative background I guess, definitely from the background of get a house and spend your life paying it off. So it is hard to break that mindset I think