Advice on asking to switch from in office work to working remotely.

In the next week or two I’d like to have a discussion with my boss about switching from working in office to working remotely, several hours away from our office.

Brief backstory: My wife and I moved across the country 4 years ago with the intention of buying a home in a rural part of the state. The original plan was that my wife would work a remote job and I would work freelance at home. We’ve been living and renting in the city and saving everything we can to buy a home since then. My freelance career has been successful during this time. Last year we put in an offer on a home that we loved but it turned out there was a legal issue with the home’s title so we didn’t move forward with it. A couple months later I had a company reach out to me for a full time job, the offer was great so I thought I would give it a try.

I’ve been with the company for 8 months now, going into the office most days. They are very good about allowing us to work from home when needed. We have some employees who are almost every day in the office, one guy who only comes I once or twice a week, other employees who live a few hours away from the office, others who live across the country, and some who live in other countries across the globe. They already have a great system for remote work. There’s about 12 people who are regularly in the office, and there have been days when I was in the office and never spoke a word to anyone else. People just sit at their desks and work, there isn’t a real need for us to actually be in the office at all.

I love the job, it’s exactly the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do, the pay is great, the work isn’t stressful, it would be stupid to let it go. After 6 months they gave me a performance bonus of $10k and a 3.5% raise. But I also want to move into a home and start the next stage of my life.

Any tips or advice on selling the idea of allowing me to switch to remote work? I’m willing to offer to come in a few times a month, my wife may need to come back up for special occasions anyways so we could just go together. Should I offer to take a pay cut or forego some bonuses? That would be a last resort though.

My boss just bought a house himself so I was thinking of at least using that as a starting point for the conversation.

Thanks for any advice!