How do I get my wife on board??

[Ben Winchester]

Hello, I'm running into an issue with getting my wife as excited about this as I am. I don't expect her to all of a sudden have the passion for real estate that I do, but I'm worried I won't be able to capitalize on our current opportunity. Let me back up and tell the full story. A couple months ago we decided to sell our condo and buy a single family home that we can move to, an upgrade if you will. We bought our condo 2.5 years ago for $137,000 as a foreclosure. We currently owe $124,000 (give or take a few hundred bucks). We recently (yesterday) fell out of contract with a buyer who was going to purchase the place for $211,000.. after closing costs, giving us a nice profit of +- $70,000. During the time of selling I found BP and have been binge listening to the podcast. I would love to be able to use some of our profits to invest and find another property, she would love to invest the entire amount into our next home so we could live in a nice place. I've slowly been discussing the idea of investing to her and she's completely on board with investing, but she would rather do the comfortable option and use the profits to put into OUR next home. The way I see it, I have several options (probably more that I don't see as well) We could sell and use the entire profits to put into our next home. From there, I would have to find different funds to start investing with. This option is viable, I figure that it will just prolong the beginning of the investments that I want to do. We could sell, use some of the money for a new home, and then some of the money to invest. If we do this, it lowers our price range of a new home, which is proving to be a difficult find with my local market being near the top. We could stay where we are and refinance, using that money to invest. I like this option because our current interest rate is 4.75% and right now, a refi rate is lower than that, making our monthly payment stay relatively close to what it is now, while being able to get a good chunk of money to start investing. My wife wants a nice home, and so do I, but I also want to be able to set us up for financial success in the future. I'd rather start buying investing properties now, earning more money for us to buy, or build, our own home in the next 5 years. Any advice, thoughts, personal experiences, etc. are welcome! I love BP because it provides so many people a platform to be able to discuss many issues involved with RE. Thanks in advance for any responses. Ben

[Marnie L.]

Hello, Ben. Congrats on making a lot of equity at a young age on your first condo purchase. I am still new here to BP myself, but have had some experience in real estate (renting and holding long term). I don't know your area of the country very well. 

Before you decide to take some big steps, I think you need to talk more to your wife and be on the same page with your strategy to buy real estate. These are very expensive decisions to make and you want to make sure your partner in life is with you every step of the way.

I know very little about Oregon, so I will give you a general opinion. Keep in mind condos and townhomes tend not to appreciate as well as single detached homes. I have had a condo and a townhome and lost a lot of money due to timing of the market (08' crash). If I had sold them at an earlier time, I could have made some money, but I did not. Outside of a few metro areas, condos generally do not gain as much appreciation and they do have limitations in renting out. I'm sure you have checked with your HOA rules about potential rentals.

Based on your post, I'm leaning towards you cashing out and refiing your current condo property to invest, but there are probably some other ideas out there that might be more advantageous to you in growing wealth in real estate.

I think if you posted this question in general real estate investing, you would have gotten more replies. :) Either way, good luck.