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Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

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Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#91
post #10

I’ve got a share portfolio that generates a couple bucks a day in short share lending. Literally just tick a box to give broker permission. Nothing is risky free but looked into it and as best as I can tell it’s a pretty good deal. No inconvenience, not much risk etc

I had always assumed they just did that already without permission

Perhaps they do. If they get caught, though, that's big trouble with the regulators.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#92
post #2

I would point out that renting out a condo is not a passive investment; keeping up with tenants, doing cleaning and maintenance, etc. can be a full-time job (maybe less so for a condo than a house, but still). And as we here probably know, maintaining a website is not necessarily passive either, and I would imagine the same is true of a vending machine. These are projects, and at some point they become businesses; no…

Passive income is usually “dramatically less work than a full time job” — e.g. 5 days effort per month. Even paying someone else to do it means you still need to check up on it (and make sure they’re actually doing the work, and doing it competently)

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#93

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…

That does not sound passive to me, ideally a passive income should require minimal amount of working hours outside of ones regular job

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#94

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…

How did you get into this... I am assuming you didn't come up with the idea/method since there seems to be competition out there already.

How long have you been at it and, when you decided to take the plunge, how long did it take you to get everything set up and going before your first publish (as in figuring out the ropes)?

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#96
post #3

Compound will give you a risk-free 6.3% APY (other than the risk of smart contracts) on USDC (digitized dollars) https://compound.finance/markets/USDC

Additionally, BlockFi pays 8.6% APY on stablecoins. If you have any BTC, ETH, or LTC, they'll pay interest on those as well. Normally interest is paid in like-kind (e.g. a BTC balance generates BTC interest), but with the Flex option, you could have interest from all balances paid as one token. I chose to have everything paid in GUSD stablecoin, for instance, primarily to make figuring out taxes easier.

BlockFi's interest is a very attractive offer, but the risks you're exposed to aren't very transparent.

What could happen that would impact the exchange rate of this 'Stable coin'? What risks exactly is one taking on for the 8.6% interest?

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#97
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you're talking about being landlord of an apartment in a larger apartment complex where a property manager takes care of many apartments at the same time? I'm asking because my impression is that this scales better and should therefore be significantly cheaper than paying someone to manage a single apartment or house somewhere. (Besides, with a house or I'd imagine a lot more fixes being necessary over time.…

Here exist companies and individuals that do it. In fact is unusual your rent is directly to the owner, is the norm you pay the "Arrendadora" instead. The case of apartment is a bit different. All complex have "administration" that everyone pay, but this is mostly in "closed complex". If the building is in the open, is more common is a person that take the role. BTW: I'm close to Medellin in a town called El carmen d…

Gracias, parce, por su respuesta! :) (Incidalmente, el lugar donde quería buscarme un apartamento es Medellín.)

> All complex have "administration" that everyone pay, but this is mostly in "closed complex".

Would this administration also take care of fixing things and taking on the role of "arrendador" if I, as the owner, rent out the apartment to someone else? (Provided I pay them, of course.) Or would I have to hire someone else for that?

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#98
post #80

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…

There's something about this that just makes me really sad. I guess being in my late 30's I hold on to the flawed notion that there is sanctity in something that is 'published'. Does anyone here want to read a book that wasn't written by an expert on the topic? How upset or sad would you feel if you spend several hours reading a book only to discover it was produced by an opportunist who picked that keyword and asked…

Who says the ghostwriter is not an expert on the topic? The above is quite similar to a startup incubator, there is a demand in the marketplace that's unmet, one hires people to meet that demand and develop a product after which customers buy it.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#99
post #22

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…

Over the lifespan of owning the building, say a few decades, you can expect: 1. Rare but highly expensive major expenses like a new roof, new heating system, etc. It's like a tail risk- you don't pay for it most years, but when it comes up, it costs a lot. 2. Required renovations- just to stay at your current level of quality. I.e. let's say you rent to normal middle class tenants now. In 10-15 years, you'll need to…

Source, am actually familiar with the true rate of return for properties over a long enough time span to judge.

And what is it?

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