What are the best sources of passive income?

[Davino]

Besides renting properties, what are good sources of passive income?

[FourCrossedWands]

"Passive income" is a relative term. Even renting properties is not a fully passive income.

You can have some websites / online businesses that are almost passive, but most of them need regular work.

Investing can be considered a passive income, but it's either too risky, or it will barely cover inflation.

If you want to make some good money, you will still need to work for it.

[Butters]

That's a very general question. Besides, renting out property isn't passive at all and usually requires tons of work. I think you're better of buying Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). These are companies that own, operate, or finance income-producing real estate and are required by law to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders in the form of dividends. They can be a good way to invest in real estate without having to buy properties directly.

But instead of finding the "best" passive income source why not create a diversified portfolio, including some higher risk investments that excite you? If you're young you should have at least some risk tolerance. Of course you can always put everything into safe bets I guess. 

Edited September 27 by Butters

[Davino]

I'm exploring ways of sustaining myself in 15 years with minimum amount of work (2 days a week max)

So far renting seems the easiest way to go. That's why I wanted to hear other inputs or possibilities but they either require high competence or too much work.

I'm not avoiding hard work, I'm trying to set up a nice lifestyle to pursue meaningful endeavours without worrying about survival.

I'm eager to hear new possibilities. Thanks

Edited September 27 by Davino

[Butters]

@Davino I don't have any experience with it but I heard renting out property is a ton of work because you got renters complaining, maintenance and all sort of hassle.

Why not start a business you could ultimately outsource for the most part and only work one day a week? Then you could invest everything that's more than you spend per month into something safe like ETFs. 

[FourCrossedWands]

I would say it was much easier to build some kind of passive income about 10-15 years ago, because there wasn't much information available, but if you got the right info, the competition was super-low in everything.

[Butters]

4 minutes ago, FourCrossedWands said:

I would say it was much easier to build some kind of passive income about 10-15 years ago, because there wasn't much information available, but if you got the right info, the competition was super-low in everything.

If you're talking about websites or FBA for example there's some truth there, but I could make the counter argument that you can now leverage many tools and Ai to grow traffic substantially quicker without running ads. 

If you're talking about offline like a carpet cleaning business then I don't really see it. But overal I say it's much easier today than 15 years ago. 

[FourCrossedWands]

Yes, I am talking about websites. It was possible to just buy a domain and start ranking on Google the next day without any expertise or valuable content. It was rigged back then.

[Davino]

2 hours ago, Butters said:

Why not start a business you could ultimately outsource for the most part and only work one day a week?

That is a lot more work than renting.

2 hours ago, Butters said:

Then you could invest everything that's more than you spend per month into something safe like ETFs. 

I know nothing about ETFs, do you have any sources were I could learn more?

[Butters]

10 minutes ago, Davino said:

That is a lot more work than renting.

2 hours ago, Butters said:

Do you mean that you currently have the capital to buy a house in cash? Or were you thinking of mortgaging a home and renting it out? The latter is a liability and not an asset. 

You might find this video helpful (starting at around 38 minutes): 

10 minutes ago, Davino said:

I know nothing about ETFs, do you have any sources were I could learn more?

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp

Edited September 27 by Butters

[Heaven]

Investing in dividend stocks is the most passive thing I know of. But it requires some knowledge so be aware.

[Lyubov]

I don’t think anything beats rental properties 

[puporing]

It's not "passive income" per se... But you should seriously consider living in a van part time/seasonally, frees up some of your bills.

And as well these days I actually do not recommend rental properties anymore unless you conduct a thorough research of the property and plan to be extra diligent with tenant screening.

As a more extreme example, I opened myself up to fraudsters in a condo building as a result which was completely unforseen (although hopefully uncommon). (And now I'm sorta stuck there because things would go to shit again if I just left like the previous frustrated owners).

I also am reluctant about Airbnb as well now because their damages department has gotten worse over time and always tries to screw over the Hosts on guest damage claims. It is not what they advertise to the public. Or it could be what they do once a Host starts claiming "too many times". I don't know their exact internal procedures and it's not a transparent procedure. The requirements for guest damage claims has increased over time without explanation.

Well.. and the "solution" (for me anyway) is to ideally find work that you can be truly into and still get paid well enough for it. And trust me for years I thought that didn't exist for me.. because of the spiritual stuff. So you might change your mind some day about that "2-day" work week thing. 

Edited September 28 by puporing

[Leo Gura]

The best are niches which are not commonly known by everyone on the internet.

You have to research deep and obscure fields to find the gold. Pop biz knowledge is not your friend when it comes to making money.

Edited September 28 by Leo Gura

[Buck Edwards]

I have heard YouTube. But it's a difficult task to get a subscriber base. There are some people on YouTube who start a gofund me. I don't know if it's legal. But that's a possibility. A PayPal gofund if your content is creative and valuable to a niche. 

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Lyubov said:

I don’t think anything beats rental properties 

I'm arriving at the same conclusion. I think that's gonna be my go to plan. Plus I'm lucky to have experience in the field, so that gives me some competitive edge. I'll build capital for the next decade and rent a few apartments, hopefully being financially independent by age 35.

Thank you all guys for your input. This is important for me. I'll keep my eye on new biz opportunities. Feel free to keep posting new ways of passive income.

[Chadders]

@Davino I understand there’s a fair bit of passive income to be made in online courses

Another way if you have a decent amount of capital is through dividends. Just put the money in an energy company

[Davino]

Another option I've discovered is patents and utility models. Just one genius invention in your expertise field can take care of your survival for the next 20 years.

[Ero]

First learn a valuable skill and then find a way to maximally automate it. All the passive income bros are parasites imo.