What is Passive Income?
Are you looking for a way to make money without doing anything? This is called passive income, which is a cash stream that takes minimal labor to maintain. It’s common for the person acquiring the income not to be involved in the process – they are a passive part of the cash stream, not active.
Some common passive income sources include rental properties, dividend stocks, bonds, and high-yield savings accounts. While passive income sounds easy because the person acquiring the cash stream doesn’t have to do anything, it can be challenging to find the right opportunity and get it set up.
Below we discuss the top tips for generating passive income.
1. Commercial Real Estate Investing
Commercial real estate (CRE) investing is one of the most common types of passive income sources. This type of investing involves putting money toward commercial real estate properties, which consist of office buildings, multifamily apartments, shopping malls, and more.
While doing commercial real estate investing on your own is far from passive, a private equity firm can help you get there. Working with a private equity firm allows CRE professionals to do the work for you while you reap all the benefits.
2. Life Insurance
Life insurance is one of the best and most frequently overlooked sources of passive income. You can optimize every type of life insurance, whether it’s term, universal, or whole, as an investment. With cash value accumulation, you can expect to make passive income over time. If life insurance is the passive income source you want to pursue, it’s best to contact a life insurance attorney in Florida.
3. Dividend Stocks
By buying a share of a company, you’ll receive a dividend or a percentage of the company’s profits. This means that if you own ten shares in a company and their annual cash dividend is $2; you will earn $20 passively. However, instead of pocketing the cash, you can use it to get more shares, increasing your total yield over time.
When choosing stocks, it’s important to choose a company that has a good track record. Look for the dividend aristocrat label, which means the company has paid dividends for a minimum of 25 years.
4. Airbnb Listing
Another source of passive income is listing your apartment, house, or spare bedroom on Airbnb. This is a simple way to earn a substantial cash stream as you make money every time someone rents out the space. Listing on Airbnb lets you set the price and duration, so it never exceeds your capability, and you can start earning the passive income you want.
You’ll need to do some work to clean and prepare the property, but otherwise, it’s a great option for passive income because you already own the property.
5. High Yield Savings
High yield savings accounts are the safest option for passive income as it has zero risk. The process is simple: put money into savings and collect interest. High yield savings accounts have interest rates 20 to 25 percent more than the average account, making this a great way to earn money over time.
The more money you put into the savings account, the more interest you’ll earn over time. While this option allows you to accrue money faster than a typical savings account, these interest rates are variable, which means they can go up and down over time.
6. Student Income-Share Agreements
Another investment-style passive income stream is student income-share agreement (ISA). ISA allows you to pay for a college student’s tuition to earn income later. In exchange for paying off tuition, the student agrees to pay you a percentage of their income for a fixed amount of time.
Returns typically range from 8-14%, which means you’ll be making substantial income without doing anything. However, it’s important to note that you must be an accredited investor to participate in income-share agreements.
7. REITs
For unaccredited investors who are still interested in real estate investing, real estate investment trusts (REITs) are a good alternative. This option provides portfolio diversification, higher returns, and potentially lower risk than other types of real estate investing.
However, despite their differences, private equity firms and REITs both involve little to no effort on the part of the investor. You put in your money, and the REIT professionals will do all the work. Whether you’re interested in shopping mall investments or investing in mortgages, shareholders receive 90% of taxable income, making it one of the best-performing asset classes.
These are only a few of the options for earning passive income. If these seven options don’t sound like they are too much work or too complicated, other alternatives include creating an online course, selling stock photos, or licensing music.
Whatever you want to pursue a consistent cash stream, be sure to remember that nothing can be entirely free of work. Even investing money takes some effort to complete. You may need to set up the process or put a little upfront effort into the project. However, once you get everything in place, you’ll start growing your income with little to no effort.
About the Author
Veronica Baxter is a writer, blogger, and legal assistant operating out of the greater Philadelphia area.
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