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By passive I'll assume you mean less effort and risk than starting a new business that requires daily attention. The nice things about the property market are: 1. High leverage - to a very high amount when you put down payments greater than 30-50%. 2. Managed or protected by some governments. Gives a more consistent rate of growth in many fast growth cities. 3. Cashflow and appreciation. The details matter and there'…
Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work.
Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazon BSR of less than 150k.
The above isn't easy, nor is it particularly difficult.
Once you've found a good keyword, create an outline on the subject. You'll have to do a bit of research here, but this can be done in a few hours to a few days. The more time you spend here, the better your result will be.
Then, hire a ghostwriter to produce a 30k-ish word long book. This will run you around $1000, and produce a book long enough to turn into a 3+ hour audiobook on Audible (audiobooks over 3hrs get significantly better royalties than less than 3 hours).
Get a cover made. This will run from $50ish on fiverr to several hundred on 99designs or upwork. Don't cheap out, good covers are important.
Publish on amazon. Run ads.
There's obviously more too it than this. If interested, look up the Mikkelsen twins or Dane McBeth on youtube.
Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…
As another poster already said, being a landlord is not 'passive'- you are essentially buying a part time job with no set off hours. The heat could go out on Christmas Eve, while you're on vacation, etc. It is a highly regulated (especially in blue states) field involving, you know, actual human beings! Anyone advocating for being a landlord as a 'passive' investment vehicle is generally some type of Trump University…
You would be correct if you were managing this property yourself. This would be incorrect if you have a property manager managing this property. You can work with your property manager to auto approve any house related work that is under a certain threshold. Otherwise, they will send you an invoice for you to pay at your convenience. With that said, depending on the property manager, they will do some of the followin…
Now it's 'passive', sure, but no longer an 'investment'
* Rental properties, vending machines, etc have poor liquidity. What if you need to get your cash back out in an emergency? This poor liquidity is particularly correlated to poor economic conditions (ie. it takes longer to sell a condo in a bad economy which is also when you might really need cash).
* Many non-traditional investments are not actually passive. Even with a property manager, you still have to manage that person. Also, many investments can have quarters with negative cashflow. What might happen to your cashflows in a given period if a tree falls on your rental property breaking the roof and the tenants move out as a result? What if your property manager also quits on you because that situation isn't worth dealing with?
* There are a variety of ETFs focused on non-debt income (Eg. high dividend equity funds). Vanguard's trades under the ticker VYM. If you come from a background purchasing equities, these kinds of investments might be more comfortable for you.
So, about renting, I bought a single family home for $500k in bay area. It now is worth $1M. Gets me rent before expenses of $40000. So far, I have spent about $5k per year on. Repairs etc. So effectively, I make about $20k after taxes, repairs, mortgage interest etc. Overall, I spent $350k by way of downpayment, mortage interest payment, etc. No major tenant issues. Hence, I would peg my return on investment of 5% i…
Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…
Are the books any good? What are reviews like?
I'm not the only one doing this, of course. Most of the books I see my competitors make are of lower quality, but they probably paid a lot less for them. In general, books made by people like me read like really long blog posts - because that's where most of the information comes from.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that can quickly disappear for those who end up with tenants that don't pay and can't be evicted.
That's my fear. But can you tell me in what situations I cannot evict my tenants. (Honest question).
One which I'm curious about is buying software businesses with existing user bases and adding new features, kind of the equivalent of buying a fixer upper, but it uses my unique skills.
Are there any good sites that do that... seems like they're filled with sites that are hard to verify if they're legit.