turn my primary into a rental

[Isiah Ferguson]

We've been living in our primary residence for 2 years now. Our payment PITI is $1100 and the market rent for our house is $1800 per month. I would love to turn our home into a rental but my wife doesn't. How can I persuade her this is a great idea ?. At this point she emotionally attached which I understand to a degree. SHe understand what REI can do for us but doesn't love it.

[Jim K.]

@Isiah Ferguson

At least once a month, some dude starts a "how can I convince my wife/girlfriend" thread here on Bigger Pockets. It's ALWAYS a dude. Never a woman asking about how to get her husband on board.

The best advice I can offer is, "Show, don't tell." Try to get your wife to read stuff written by others, listen to other people talking about this. The less that comes out of your mouth to convince her and the more she hears and learns elsewhere from an independent source, the better.

This may sound sexist and unenlightened, but it's been my experience that lot of women are raised to want two things before all others: babies and the appearance of a middle-class life. The middle-class life includes a house, a mortgage, a nice car. If you don't have these things you should be striving for these things. There's a lot of social brainwashing that goes into that. There's a lot of pressure from peers, acquaintances, family. There's a huge sense of failure when a woman doesn't have these things. It takes an unusual woman to throw off all that baggage and decide to rent the centerpiece of the middle-class dream away, the home she owns with her name on the title, and live somewhere else as a way to make money.

And of course, she has to have a lot of trust in you. Have you earned this trust?