How to start the Real Estate Conversation with your Partner

Life by Design

Jessilyn and Brian Persson draw from their Riches, Relationships, and Real Estate program to talk in-depth about communication and initiating the real estate investing conversation with a partner. Ensuring partners are on the same page requires the sort of communication skills outlined in their Discover Define Design framework and is vital to the success of a real estate investment portfolio. But just as importantly, conversation is key to the success of the relationship between partners managing the portfolio.

The three takeaways providing the structure of this episode are 1) Discuss the resistance and fears a partner has about real estate investing, 2) Discuss what is desired as a couple, and 3) Design how to reach the goal on the same page with the same plan. There are a great number of facets involved with real estate investing, from understanding fears, accepting debt, where each partner’s strengths and passions lie, and the very practical aspects of forming a supportive team of lawyers, mortgage brokers, and realtors to assist in building the portfolio. The heart of success rests in conversations that outline what each partner will and won’t do and where different skill sets require outside help to bolster the portfolio. Jessilyn and Brian speak from personal experience and have the success and knowledge to offer foundational guidance.

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] 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: [00:00:20] 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 you achieve your goals.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:34] Today, we're going to talk about how to start the real estate investing conversation with your partner. One of the main reasons to do this, obviously, is so you are on the same page as your partner, and you can understand what each other is thinking and feeling.

Brian Persson: [00:00:49] Exactly. There was a point in our past where we were very much not on the same page and very much not having the conversation. So we've learned through our own bruises and problems inside of our relationship to have this conversation. And we want to share it with you to make sure that you guys can have the conversation earlier than later and get moving fast on your wealth.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:15] Yeah. And so today's three takeaways really follow strongly along the framework that we talk about in many of our different episodes, the Discover Define Design framework, but our takeaway, first one today, is to discuss the resistance and fears that you or your partner may have around real estate.

Brian Persson: [00:01:36] And takeaway number one is all about the discover part of our Discover Define Design framework, where you go into your emotions, you explore what's really under the surface and you maybe you don't want to face it. Maybe you don't want to admit it. But that's what this is about, is about trying to figure out what is in your way and what emotions and barriers are coming up when it comes to real estate investing.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:04] Yeah. And so some of the questions we offer here are like what feelings come up around real estate for you, whether they're positive or negative, you want to talk about them both so you both have the same understanding going into real estate investing. And I know, you know, we look back in our past when we did real estate, I know it was super exciting for me and very positive. And I just loved so much about it. And I don't think it was that you didn't love some of it, I think it was just your fears were around some of the things about real estate. Like how much did you actually know about real estate investing right?

Brian Persson: [00:02:46] Back then, like so many people out there, they don't want to move unless you know everything. It's almost like you have to have the plan, not the plan, but you almost have to have a crystal ball into the future and see your future and know that everything is going to work out. Otherwise you just won't move. That's where I was. I wanted that crystal ball. I wanted to know that everything was going to be perfect. And I, probably those fears came out of that not knowing that everything was going to be perfect.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:16] Well, I think you also had a fear of not knowing what you were doing, which is very typical when you start anything.

Brian Persson: [00:03:22] 100% yeah. But I mean, you think about a kid walking, they don't know how to walk, but they get up, they fall down, they bump and bruise themselves. And do they say, you know what, screw this, I'm not walking anymore. They don't do that. They get up and they get up and they get up until one day they're walking around and that's real estate investing and that's a lot of aspects of life. Unfortunately, and I can say this because I, you know, I was stuck in that place, people don't like to do that. They don't like to get up and fall down. They like to know that they're going to get up. And they know that they're going to walk on the first time. And unfortunately, a lot of things just don't work that way. You got to take a little bit of risk and you got to jump.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:10] You got to yeah, make mistakes. And I mean, that's how you learn, right, from the mistakes. So I know another thing that we had to explore was the resistance of too much work or the overwhelm, even the thought of it, even if you're not into it yet, the thought of it sometimes just puts people standing still and not moving forward because they're worried about how much work it's going to be, how overwhelmed they're going to be. And this is worry that they don't even know yet because they haven't experienced it, might not be as bad as they think.

Brian Persson: [00:04:42] Yeah, anxiety is, as I say, is a problem that is in the future, hasn't happened yet. So you're experiencing an emotion today for something that doesn't even exist. It's still in your future. And a lot of people get into that space where they just don't want to start anything because they are worried, or they have anxiety about how much work it's going to take, what efforts and problems they're going to experience when they get into real estate. But one of the things, and you said it already, the positive and negative aspect on real estate, you got to, you have to explore those emotions. Because for me dealing with tenants is super, super easy.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:19] Now.