Let’s face it: real estate is a lucrative market. For years people have made a living off of this business, turning their initial capital into sprawling real estate empires. The best part — you don’t actually have to own property to get your slice of the pie! Real estate is a huge market with many potential niches. Here are some six real estate business ideas to get you started!
Become a landlord
This is one of the oldest — and most reliable — ways of making money off of real estate. Traditionally, it goes as far back as the Medieval Age when feudal lords collected taxes from people working on the land they owned. Today, it’s no different. You charge rent (usually on a monthly basis) to generate a steady source of income for yourself; plus, the value of the property increases over time. Once you finally sell the property, you gain quite a hefty profit due to its rise in equity — this is called land appreciation.
Generally, you can own one or multiple estates at the same time (depending on your financial abilities), including residential houses, commercial buildings, an apartment complex, and more.
Tap into property management
Not everyone likes getting their hands dirty — especially landlords who have multiple properties to look after. That’s where the property manager comes into play. In short, it’s a person (or quite possibly a company) that runs the normal day-to-day operations (collects rent, interviews tenants, etc.) and maintains the property in question. Usually, this is done for a percentage of the rent and can be quite a lucrative business if you get multiple clients (or clients with more properties to manage).
Overall, it requires little to no investment from your end, apart from a place to store tools and the most common maintenance supplies, making it extremely good for newcomers on the real estate scene.
Flip a property
Flipping a property, although quite profitable, is not as simple as it may seem first-hand. Basically, what this entails is finding a run-down, low-cost home, running repairs, decorating the whole place, and then selling it off at a higher price. Sounds easy but it’s extremely difficult to pull off; you need quite an extensive knowledge of the real estate market to get the house’s value just right and not go over budget. This is where an experienced property investment company comes in handy. They can help you make accurate property appraisals and conduct meticulous market research for you to ensure that you don’t overpay for your investment.
In addition, apart from their vast knowledge, you also get to tap into their huge network of connections, making it easier for you to find reliable contractors and agents to do business with.
Become a real estate agent
Another fairly common way of getting into real estate is becoming a real estate agent. You probably saw how in the movies real estate agents make tons of money for doing very little work. This is simply not true. Breaking into the industry as a real estate agent is actually quite difficult and requires great character and immense expertise. Not forgetting the real estate exams that you need to take and which you can get some help with from Real Estate Exam Ninja Truth be told, the vast majority of today’s house sales are mediated by real estate agents; so there definitely is some cash to be had there. Still, to be an effective middleman, you need to have at least some basic experience with house flipping or with being a landlord/property manager.
Dabble into renovations and repairs
Again, you don’t have to own property to make money off of real estate. If you possess the necessary knowledge and expertise, you can get into the fairly lucrative renovation and repair business. There’s always a need for this kind of work; particularly in the past few years where hurricanes and other natural disasters have become so common.
Now, you don’t have to get into the construction side of things, if you lack the funds. Simply, work on redecorating and restoring old homes for cash. This includes interior design, painting, plumbing, electrical work, etc. In essence, it can be a specific specialization or more of them combined, depending on your particular set of skills.
Get into the real estate marketing scene
Tapping into the online marketing scene (for real estate) can be a killer business. If you have some previous marketing experience, there are potentially three ways to make money here. For starters, you can offer your services to clients and get paid to run their social media campaigns, advertisements, be in charge of their search engine optimization, and so on.
Next, you can market your own real estate business, provided you have a real estate agency or a property management company under your belt. That way, you get to attract more clients and expand your reach.
Finally, you can start your own real estate blog and simply make money off of that — with paid ads, affiliate marketing, and all the usual stuff.
These are just the most common business opportunities in real estate; if you have enough starting capital, the possibilities are quite endless.
