If you’re looking for ways to make money at home, then it might be comforting to know that it can definitely be accomplished by investing in real estate.
Most people, especially millennials, have probably wondered at some point in their lives and after graduating from college about the different ways to make money at home. And who wouldn’t want to make money at home? We all know how frustrating and unfulfilling it can be to have a full-time job that you have to unwillingly go to every day.
However, for the creative individuals out there, there are multiple ways to make money at home. Some of them will generate a small amount of income to complement your monthly paycheck, while others, such as real estate investing, can generate enough money for you to live off of and reinvest, allowing you to snowball your profits and eventually become a wealthy investor, all from the comfort of your own home.
And when it comes to real estate investing, this possibility might be easier to achieve than you’ve ever thought.
In this article, I will talk about investing in real estate as a method to make money at home as well as reinvest over and over again until you’ve finally secured a source of income that you can rely on for the rest of your life.
How to Make Money at Home with Real Estate Investing
Real estate investing is one of the most common ways of making money and accumulating wealth. However, real estate investing isn’t known to be a passive investment. Meaning, it traditionally requires you to be active, seek out investment opportunities, do a lot of research, and wait long periods of time before the profits start ticking in.
While this is traditionally true, it isn’t always the case. In fact, with the emergence of Airbnb rental properties as one of the most prominent investment strategies in real estate, more and more investors are turning to this type of investment as a method to make money at home.
Airbnb rentals are short-term rental properties that were made popular not many years ago by the company Airbnb. These properties, unlike traditional rentals, function similarly to hotels and motels in that they are designed to be rented out on a nightly basis.
This opens up a whole new level of possibilities and an entirely new audience that you can target as possible tenants and sources of income.
In fact, short-term rentals have shown to generate higher profits than traditional rentals in several cities in the US. Sometimes, Airbnb rental properties can even generate monthly profits that are double or triple the average income that a day job can generate.
The best part about short-term rentals is that there are many ways that you can rent out a property on the short-term. If you don’t have enough money to purchase a new property and rent it out, you can start by renting out part of your own primary residence and use the generated money to purchase a new property and so on.
There are several creative investment strategies surrounding short-term rentals and many different types to choose from. For example, you can invest in a vacation rental – a short-term rental property in a vacation destination that attracts a high number of tourists and tenants during certain seasons of the year. The best part is that with such properties, you can still use the property as a vacation home for you and your family whenever you feel like it.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Short-Term Rentals to Make Money at Home
As mentioned above, the advantages of Airbnb rentals range from the high amount of profits they can generate, to their duality of use as a source of income as well as a secondary residence, to the possibility of renting out part of your own residence without having to invest in a new property.
However, there are certain disadvantages to owning short-term rentals as well.
The first and biggest disadvantage of Airbnb rentals is that they are not always legal. Depending on the area or city that you want to invest in, there might be restrictions on short-term rentals that force you to live in the property for a number of days each year, limit the number of days you can rent it out in a year, or outright forbid you from renting out on the short-term.
This disadvantage can be easily avoided by researching the market that you want to invest in and making sure that it allows for short-term rentals, or to plan your investment and finances based on the number of days you can rent the property out in order to make sure you will be generating enough money to maintain and run the property.
Read: These Are the Best Cities for Airbnb Investments 2018
The second disadvantage is that, commonly, short-term rentals require a lot of time and effort to manage. In fact, if you opt for managing the property yourself, then you shouldn’t expect to make money at home. Instead, you will find yourself always occupied by tending to your tenants, handling turnovers, and doing all the cleaning and property maintenance on your own.
This also has an easy solution, however. As a landlord of a rental property, you will have the option to hire a rental property management company to do all the work for you. From finding tenants, to advertising the property, to screening the tenants, all the way to cleaning and maintaining the property; a property management company will do all of these tasks and report everything back to you, for a price of course. Most property management companies will usually ask for 8-12% of each rent payment as their fee. So, if you plan your finances correctly and can afford to hire one, then property management companies are your best option for turning short-term rentals into a “make money at home” investment.
Where/How Can I Find Short-Term Rentals to Invest In?
If you’re looking for the best and most reliable way to find Airbnb rentals that you can invest in, your best option is to use Mashvisor.
Mashvisor is a real estate analytics platform that specializes in helping investors find, analyze, and compare rental properties in the US with the use of predictive analytics. The platform will save you a lot of time and effort, and you can use it to find properties based on their price and the amount of rental income that they can generate as short-term rentals. It will also help you analyze each property, its occupancy rate, and the best financing method to use in order to generate the amount of income that you’re hoping to achieve.
Do you have a free Mashvisor account? Click here to use our Property Finder and find properties in a matter of minutes!
Bottom Line
Investing in short-term rentals can be one of the best ways to make money at home and become an investor. Once you have a successful and profitable property, you can use the profits to purchase a new one with the use of creative financing methods or pulling off a 1031 tax exchange, allowing you to grow your investment portfolio over time and accumulate wealth.
With the use of Mashvisor, you can find the perfect and most suitable short-term rental to invest in, and by hiring a property management company you will save yourself the time and effort required to run your property. All that is left to do is enjoy the passive income that is generated while you’re in the comfort of your own home.
To start looking for and analyzing the best investment properties in your city and neighborhood of choice, click here.