How to Make Money Without a Job? Real Estate

How to make money without a job*? Easy: by investing in real estate.

*And by “without a real job”, we mean your standard 9 to 5 office job.

Real estate investing is a great option if you’re interested in building wealth and achieving financial independence. And what’s great about real estate investing is that there are several ways, or strategies, to invest with. You can choose a real estate investment strategy to follow according to where you are experience-wise, availability-wise, etc., which makes investing in real estate a flexible, yet profitable endeavor. And you’ll be making money without having to go into an office every day or answering to a boss!

Let’s explore 4 great ways to make money investing in real estate:

How to Make Money Without a Job: 4 Ways to Invest in Real Estate

Investing in Long-Term Rental Properties

With long-term or traditional rental properties, you’re renting out the property for a long period of time, to a long-term tenant. This real estate strategy is also known as buy and hold. It’s also one of the easiest, least risky, ways to make money without a job. With long term investments, you are practically guaranteed a steady and consistent source of rental income. You can also enjoy passive real estate investing when you leverage appreciation of the property and hire a professional rental property manager.

One thing you need to pay attention to with traditional rental properties is tenant selection. Because tenants are long term, you should be mindful of your selection. This is not always the case for Airbnb rentals for example, where tenants stay for very short periods of time. If you don’t run adequate tenant screening, you may end up with a problematic tenant when becoming a landlord.

Related: How to Become a Landlord in 2020: 6 Steps

Investing in an Airbnb Property

Real estate investors nationwide are benefiting from the rise of Airbnb as a service. The short term rental strategy has proved to be very profitable among real estate investors – at times more profitable than long term rental property investments in many areas in the US housing market. This is why Airbnb is a great way to be making money online in real estate. With Airbnb investments, you’d need to buy a rental property, furnish and set it up, set up your online host profile, and then list it on Airbnb’s platform.

If you’re considering investing in Airbnb, make sure you select a location where it’s legal to rent out non-owner occupied properties for less than 30 days. Cities and states across the US have passed laws restricting Airbnb operations, and hosts who do not comply with these laws can face legal repercussions. The most notable drawback of Airbnb investing though is irregular rental income. During off-months, Airbnb hosts can have low Airbnb occupancy rates, which directly affects income.

Related: 13 Tips to Follow for High Airbnb Occupancy Rate

Fix n Flip Real Estate

Flipping homes is a short term real estate investment strategy in which an investor finds a distressed property in need of renovation, buys it at a low price, renovates it, and sells it at a higher price. A fix and flip strategy is a great way to make money without being employed. What’s great about fix and flips is that you can make high profits in a less competitive market. Additionally, it’s a great way to gain experience in real estate in a shorter period of time.

While fix and flip is considered a “fast” way to make money, to be able to make money with this strategy, you’ll need to flip multiple properties per year. Furthermore, you’ll need to have initial funds when buying property, and when renovating at your own expense. Finally, keep in mind that fix and flips are known to be high-risk investments in real estate. So if you’re a beginner real estate investor, you might want to stick to buying rental property.

Real Estate Wholesaling

With real estate wholesaling, investors find sellers and match them with prospective buyers. They make money by contracting homes at a higher price with buyers than with sellers. The difference between the price you negotiated with the seller, and the price the buyer agrees to, is the profit you make. This is why wholesale real estate investors should have (or should acquire) excellent negotiation skills!

Real estate wholesaling is a popular way of making money with real estate as a beginner investor. You do not need a license or a degree for real estate wholesaling. Furthermore, you can make money with real estate wholesaling more easily because you don’t need significant funds to invest. In the case of this type of investment, you’re solely contracting a property rather than purchasing it.

Related: Real Estate Wholesaling in 7 Simple Steps

You Found a Way, Now How Do You Find an Investment Property?

Your first step was to select a real estate strategy to learn how to make money without a job. Your next step is to find an investment property in a select location. Say you’re searching for investment property in your hometown, the Houston real estate market. Traditionally, you would need weeks, if not a few months, to find the right property – between exploring neighborhoods, talking to sellers, analyzing the profitability of different properties, etc.

The process of finding a property can be challenging and time-consuming. This is why real estate investors are turning to the use of online tools to aid them with investment property search. Mashvisor is one online tool that allows you to search for and analyze investment property. In your case, you’d solely need to plug in “Houston” into Mashvisor’s search engine and hit “Start Analyzing”. This will give you access to an interactive map with property listings in all available neighborhoods. You can also access data on each neighborhood and on individual investment properties for sale. Months’ work of analyzing real estate metrics such as occupancy rate, CoC return, and return on investment (ROI) can be minimized to mere minutes.

Start your 7-day free trial with Mashvisor and subscribe to our services with a 20% discount after.

To Sum Up

Can you only invest in real estate if you don’t have a job? Absolutely not. Many real estate investors choose to invest while working a full-time job. Is it more challenging? Yes. Is it doable? Also yes.  So if you’re trying to learn how to make money without a job, do consider starting a real estate business. Who knows, maybe this will turn into your 9 to 5!

The above are a few ways of how to invest in real estate. What other ways do you prefer to invest? Let us know in the comments.