Spouse wants to be the Property Manager

[Joseph Firmin]

I have recently begun my REI business and purchased my first duplex. It is about to close (next week!) and I have planned the renovation and am ready to start improving the asset prior to renting out. I have been on this journey of acquiring the knowledge, connecting to awesome people and asking questions since September 2018. I have kept my wife in the loop during the process and let her know about everything I've been doing and learning and she has been very supportive.

She is from MX and English is her second language and is in the process of preparing to take the TOEFL as she recognized that she need to improve her English prior to going back to work.

She mentioned the other day that she'd like to be involved in the business and maybe she could manage the properties that we acquire.

I'm looking for feedback from the community on how to best coach and encourage her without pushing too hard (understanding English makes the learning hard).

Thank you, very grateful for your responses!

[Ryan Murdock]

@Joseph Firmin

English is my wife's 2nd language and she has been instrumental in my business. Yes, early on the language barrier was - and to a smaller extent still is - a limiting factor but there's plenty that can be done regardless. 

She was able to show apartments, respond to lock out calls, get the mail from our PO Box, enter bills in Quickbooks, run to Lowe's, etc etc. Sometimes it was just as simple as bringing lunch to a job site I was stuck on. There's no shortage of things that can be done without having a solid grasp of the English language. She wouldn't have been able to singlehandedly sustain the entire business but she sure was an integral part of taking a lot of stuff off my plate.

If you want to improve both her English skills and RE knowledge, do what I did: subject her to a couple hundred BiggerPockets Podcasts. Now she can hold her own in any RE conversation in English or her native language.