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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#431

Post by ninjaroar »

Dowwie wrote: post #188
tove wrote: post #119

My passive income is quite standard. Three apartments in a new block. I bought all of them four years ago when the construction was still unfinished. This got me a good price. I knew that the area would be under continuous development, therefore it won't be hard to find renters. I was right. Best part is that I didn't even have to furnish them. I managed to rent them all unfurnished.

In what country are you located? Furniture is more of a short term rental requirement, unless you've included essential appliances with your categorization.

That is true in the US, even in NYC. However, furnished apartments are the norm in London, for long rentals.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#432

Post by [deleted] »

Dowwie wrote: post #188
tove wrote: post #119

My passive income is quite standard. Three apartments in a new block. I bought all of them four years ago when the construction was still unfinished. This got me a good price. I knew that the area would be under continuous development, therefore it won't be hard to find renters. I was right. Best part is that I didn't even have to furnish them. I managed to rent them all unfurnished.

In what country are you located? Furniture is more of a short term rental requirement, unless you've included essential appliances with your categorization.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#433

Post by sean_patel »

therealjohn wrote: post #111
ABS wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vincent Dignan, one of the worst twitter spammer I've ever blocked (more than once since he likes/liked to ignore complaints, open a new account and do it again...to the same people!). If spamming all of twitter in alphabetical order is an example of the growth hacks.... I see the account he used to do most of the spamming has been suspended by Twitter now https://twitter.com/vdignan

Would you not spam Twitter if you were in debt and could make 11k/mo? I agree it's lame but gotta pay the bills :)

> I agree it's lame but gotta pay the bills :) reply.

Yep. And like Floyd Mayweather said, "Skills pay the Bills." Like it or not, Mr Vincent Dugnan is very skilled at making 11,000 / month spamming on twitter and social networks. So that's that.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#434

Post by gottebp »

sean_patel wrote: post #425
gottebp wrote: post #312

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL SmartGrinder. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use ifixit[2] to drive the traffic. It's passively making ~$425/mo with about 10 minutes of work per week on my end. This all happened because my grinder failed and I couldn't get parts. [1] https://www.shapeways.com/prod…

> about 10 minutes of work per week on my end. ... and on the guide. > Sandpaper and a file are likely optional. They are only necessary if the 3D printed impeller isn't a perfect fit. Do you get any "support" queries from people who buy the impeller and then try to fit it, and it's tight (by your own admission a deliberate design choice) and they try to email you or return the impeller? Not trolling, genuinely curio…

About once per month. I purposely set expectations low by saying it may take a little sanding. That lets me over-deliver since it's usually a perfect fit. Also, ShapeWays has a decent refund policy and customer service for stuff under their responsibility.

Also, anything that comes up that takes significant back and forth with a customer, I immediately add to the iFixit writeup. All the troubleshooting steps at the bottom were a result of questions that came in at the beginning. This was a lot of work up front, but it's thankfully just a trickle now.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#435

Post by iloveluce »

shostack wrote: post #351
jrheard wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, I forgot to mention that. I think that it's possible for a lot of young people in our industry to save significantly more than 15% of their income, and so I should have said: max out your contributions to retirement accounts every year and then set things up such that you're automatically saving as much of your remaining salary as is comfortable (e.g. if you're a recent college grad working in SF, and you…

I was on the "max out retirement accounts" train when I was younger. When I got older and home prices got massively inflated, I wished I kept more of that in non retirement accounts to be made more easily liquid for a home without steep penalties. Saving tax while something grows is great, unless you need that cash sooner. Then it is not too helpful. I wish there were a tax advantaged vehicle to use for setting aside…

You can also loan yourself a bit of your 401k to buy a home. It's not a lot but at least helps https://smartasset.com/mortgage/when-to-leverage-a-401k-for-...

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#436

Post by caseysoftware »

caseysoftware wrote: post #423
avinassh wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use machine learning to determine hashtags, time of day to tweet, and new data sources. can you elaborate more this?

Sure. My last startup - Clarify.io - did automatic speech recognition through machine learning. Since I was doing the roadmap and API design, I wanted a better understanding of ML and started digging into it. For context, I started by studying the Austin tech community since that's what I know and could manually check the conclusions. The basics: Overall, the system tracks 5500+ groups, conferences, etc which is clos…

Oh, and I'm careful to disqualify job fairs. You might find a session about resume writing or "getting a better job in tech" but not the fair itself. I've gotten a bunch of thank you notes and tweets about that aspect.

They have their place, just not in my system.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#437

Post by billconan »

Murkin wrote: post #341
billconan wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why did you choose this leanpub platform? I like the fact it can publish unfinished book. but I'm worried that it is not as big as amazon?

Its a great place to build and edit the book. The pre-release is a good market validation bonus. Once its done we will publish on Amazon as well (no exclusivity at leanpub)

Are you worried about piracy?

Because leanpub allows paid user to download pdf and epub files. those can be easily shared.

whereas, on amazon, you probably could only distribute the work via kindle and printed (I'm not sure), without providing any shareable files?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#438

Post by sean_patel »

tove wrote: post #119

My passive income is quite standard. Three apartments in a new block. I bought all of them four years ago when the construction was still unfinished. This got me a good price. I knew that the area would be under continuous development, therefore it won't be hard to find renters. I was right. Best part is that I didn't even have to furnish them. I managed to rent them all unfurnished.

> My passive income is quite standard. Three apartments in a new block. I bought all of them four years ago when the construction was still unfinished.

Trust fund baby?

You make it sound easy. How much cash did you have to front for the down payment total? I know that for Investment properties, Lenders require a minimum of 25% - 35% cash down (so they can hedge their risks against you dumping a badly performing investment property.)

The barriers to entry in Real Estate investing (as rental properties) is almost always the HUGE down payment.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#440

Post by mrfusion »

averageweather wrote: post #256

http://www.averageweather.io Only have made like $20 off Adsense, but I've got a lot more work to try and get this tool into passive mode: * working on selecting a date range * style up the site a bit more * maybe have users so you can save searches etc I get very valuable data that the travel industry would probably consider great leads, but I'm just figuring out what to do with it all. Edit - and fill out these gra…

Can I see the date range chart with sunny/cloudy/rainy?

Could I compare multiple areas in one chart?

Unrelated. How could I search for the least hot areas of Florida? Or find really windy areas of Florida?

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