Real estate is one of the most popular side hustles. Whether you’re looking for some extra monthly cash flow or to build long-term wealth, there’s a real estate side hustle to help you make it happen.

In fact, it’s one of the most common routes to escape the rat race early.

That’s exactly what my friend Chad Carson did, thanks to his portfolio of rental properties. Chad built up his empire over the course of several years, capturing cash flow, appreciation, and tax benefits along the way.

And here’s some good news: you don’t need a huge down payment to get started.

In this post, we’ll cover some of the best real estate side hustles you can get started with — even if you don’t have a ton of cash today.

1. House Hacking

One of Chad’s first real estate side hustles was house hacking. He bought a run-down 4-plex, lived in one unit, and rented out the other three.

That’s how house hacking works: buy a place that’s larger thana you need, and rent out the excess space. “Typically you’re going to sacrifice comfortability with profitability,” house hacking pro Craig Curelop told me.

He described a few examples, including:

Buying a duplex, living in one unit and renting out the other unit either on Airbnb or as a long-term rental.
Buying a 5-bedroom house, living in one room and renting out the other 4 individually.

This seems most doable for younger professionals and couples who don’t need as much space, and can be a way to save big on housing.

2. Rental Properties

Rental real estate is a great side hustle that can earn relatively passive cash flow month after month.

If your local market is too expensive, take a look at Arrived, which lets you buy fractional ownership in cash-flowing rentals. Instead of needing tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment, you can get started with as little as $100.

My friend Dustin Heiner built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the passive income cash flow.

3. Live-In Flips

The government wants people to move into homes that need some work and fix them up—and they give you a pretty big tax incentive to do so.

To do a live-in flip you need to live in the home for at least 2 of 5 years. When you sell the home, there is zero capital gains tax.

Some basic math to illustrate this would be:

Buy a home that needs work for $200k in a neighborhood with an average price of $300k.
Slowly renovate over the 2-5 years, perhaps investing $30-40k in repairs.
Sell the house for $300k.
$300k – $200k – $30-40k = $60-70k net profit, tax free.

You might not want to do this long-term, but you can build up a nice tax-free nest-egg of $250-500k or more over an 8-10 year period.

If you want to find the best deals on houses to live-in flip, Chad recommended looking off-market.

He has found some great deals just walking the neighborhood and spotting vacant houses. Talk to neighbors to find out who owns the house and how you can contact them. Drop some hand-written notes out and you’ll be surprised what you start to find out.

4. Pre-Vetted Commercial Real Estate

Fundrise allows you to invest in a portfolio of commercial properties all around the country. I’ve been a Fundrise investor for years and they’ve consistently paid quarterly dividends in the 5-10% yield range.

(Disclosure: when you sign up, I earn a commission. All opinions are my own.)

Plus, you can get started with as little as $10.

Check out my full Fundrise review to learn more.

5. BRRRR: Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat

The popular BRRRR real estate side hustle works like this:

Buy a fixer-upper property
Rehab it
Rent it out
Refinance it for the new market value
Repeat: Use the cash from the refinance to buy the next property

Austin Miller built his rental portfolio this way, which was up to 17 properties worth $1.2 million when we spoke.

The kicker? They were all acquired “free”—without any of his own money.

6. Bird Dogging

Bird-dogging is how Chad got his start into real estate.

The term “bird-dogging” is a hunting term that refers to the dogs that sniff out where the birds are hiding in the bushes.

In real estate, it means sniffing out a good deal on behalf of an investor. The big advantage is that there are no costs or risks involved from your side, and it’s a great way to learn how to find good investment properties.

It also helps you understand the market better and how to find a good deal, so when you have enough to invest yourself, you’ll be able to find a great deal.

In Chad’s case, he was earning $2,000 every time he found one of his investors a deal.

To find investors, join real estate investing meet-ups in your area, or just pitch the idea to people with money to invest. If you can show them how they’ll make a good return on their investment, they’ll be willing to work with you.

Note: You need a real estate license to this.

Chad advised the easiest way to go about it is to sign up with a referral agent brokerage for around $100/year. The agency will take a percentage of your earnings, but provides you some protection in contracts and is a low cost way to get started.

7. Raw Land Flipping

Almost every seasoned landlord will have a horror story about tenants, toilets, or termites. One real estate side hustle that avoids all those problems is raw land flipping.

How this one works is you:

Find distressed land owners, often through country records and direct mail.
Make them a cash offer for their property.
Re-sell the land for a quick cash flip or low monthly installments.

I connected with one Side Hustle Show guest who built his land flipping business to $10k a month in his first year.

To learn more, check out the free land investing launch kit.

8. Short-Term Real Estate Loans

Help fund real estate rehab projects through short-term loans on sites like Groundfloor. These notes typically range from 3-12 months and earn 6-10% interest.

Groundfloor has an easy-to-use interface that lets you shop for these investments. The minimum amount per loan is just $10 so you can easily spread your investments around to diversify. 

If things go south, you’ve got the property as collateral so you can typically recover your principal.

9. Master Leasing

Master leasing is sub-leasing out a property. This real estate side hustle works best if you can find a vacant property that needs a little work. That way you can negotiate a win-win partnership with the owner.

For example, you might find a property to lease for $1k a month, then sub-lease it out for $1,500 a month.

There are some benefits to both sides of the master lease partnership. On your side:

Much lower upfront costs than investing in a property.
Not a huge time investment.
You can scale this up as a business model.
You’re not responsible for tax and insurance.

And for the property owner:

Guaranteed rental income.
No hassle managing the tenants.
Some property improvements depending on the agreement you reach.

10. Rental Arbitrage

Similar to master leasing, rental arbitrage gives you a chance to make money from real estate you don’t even own.

How it works is you:

Sign a long-term lease on a property.
Furnish the place.
List it as a short-term rental on Airbnb or other platforms.
Profit on the spread between whatever you can collect in short-term rental fees and your fixed monthly rent.

For example, maybe your monthly rent is $2,500, but you can earn $200 a night on Airbnb. If you rent it out 20 nights a month, you’ll be brining in $4,000 a month in revenue, and roughly $1,500 a month in gross profit.

There’s an art and a science to rental arbitrage, and it’s controversial in tight rental markets. Still, some enterprising Airbnb hosts report bringing in 6-figures in profit — all while traveling the world.

While startup costs are pretty low here, furnishing the property is one upfront expense to consider.

11. Leasing Agent

Working as a leasing agent is a great way to learn how the rental market works and make some cash at the same time.

Finding and screening tenants is a huge time drain for landlords and property managers. Leasing agents solve that pain and often earn a half to a full month’s rent as a finder’s fee.

How it works is you:

find tenants for a property
show them around
help them fill out all the necessary paperwork
present the applications to the landlord

Leasing agents are more popular in larger cities, but you could potentially negotiate a deal wherever you live.

You’ll need a property manager license or a regular real estate license. Check the laws in your state, but you can typically expect to pay $400-500 and take a week or two of classes to learn the basics.

Chad explained, “You’re learning how to do one of the more important parts of the rental business on someone else’s dime.”

As a starting point, contact property managers and offer to work for them as a leasing agent as an independent contractor.

12. Wholesaling

Real estate wholesaling involves:

Finding distressed properties and motivated sellers.
Getting them under contract.
Quickly selling them to other investors.

You don’t need much capital upfront, just a lot of legwork to find deals and network with potential buyers.

13. Traditional REITs

Publicly-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) are perhaps the most passive real estate side hustle.

You can buy shares through any brokerage, including fan-favorite M1 Finance.

14. Mobile Notary Service

Mobile Notary loan signing agents can make around $100 an hour for completing loan signings for new home buyers. It’s a great real estate side hustle because most signings take place in the evenings. (Banks like to lend money to people who have jobs!)

To learn more, check out some of the resources at Loan Signing System to learn more. (Use promo code sidehustle for 10% off, or check out this review featuring a couple Loan Signing System students.)

Once you know what you’re doing and are on board with a few signing services, you’ll start to get text message notifications of gigs near you. With each one, you can choose to accept or reject it based on your availability.

15. Mobile Home Investing

Mobile homes are a compelling real estate niche because you typically have much lower initial investments that traditional single family homes.

My friend Rachel Hernandez made her first mobile home purchase for $3,600 and re-sold it for $10,000 on a lease-to-own contract. These days, she earns around $10,000 a month from her mobile home investments.

16. Rent Out Your Extra Space

You’re probably familiar with Airbnb and similar sites, where you can turn the extra space in your home into extra cash.

But if you don’t want to deal with guests at all, the Neighbor platform might be worth a look. Neighbor lets you store people’s extra stuff where you have space for it.

This is likely to be very passive monthly income after the initial drop off. Some hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations.

Check out our full Neighbor review to learn more.

17. Buy Part of a Farm

Accredited investors can buy stakes in America’s farmland with AcreTrader, starting with $5000 minimums. Since 1990, farmland investments have seen an 11.5% annualized return (according to the site).

AcreTrader crowdfunds the purchase of active farmland, and then rents it back to the farmers who operate it. Investors make money in two ways:

appreciation of the land in the event of a future sale
annual cash rent payments from farmers

The company aims for annualized cash distributions in the 3-5% range, with a $5000 minimum investment.

18. Drone Photography

Listing agents often hire drone pilots to take dramatic overhead pictures and videos of homes they’re selling. If you already fly a drone as a hobby, you might float the idea to local realtors to see if they’d pay for your service.

Some drone pilots report making $200 for a single project.

19. Property Management

Another real estate side hustle that doesn’t require owning any property is becoming a property manager. In this role, you’re responsible for:

Filling vacancies
Coordinating repairs and maintenance
Collecting rent and dealing with late payments

Basically, your job is to make the landlord’s life as easy as possible. In exchange, you’ll typically earn around 10% of the gross monthly rent as your fee. For example, if the house rents for $2500 a month, you’d earn $250.

Most states require a real estate license to get started as a property manager.

20. Airbnb Co-Hosting

In addition to her own short-term rental properties, Zeona McIntyre has built a side hustle “co-hosting” other Airbnbs.

She communicates with guests, coordinates check-ins and check-outs, and schedules maintenance and cleaning. In exchange, she earns 20% of the booking fees—with none of the risk or upfront cost.

21. Lead Generation for Real Estate Agents

A unique real estate side hustle is providing a lead generation service other real estate agents. If you’re comfortable with building websites and search engine optimization, it can translate into some big paydays!

For example, Link Moser runs NHFineHomes.com, which features high-end, lakefront real estate listings in New Hampshire.

When prospective buyers find the website — usually through Google — they might reach out for more information.

At that point, Link can either work with them himself as a real estate agent or pass along the lead to one of his referral partners.

A typical referral fee is 25% of the closing agent’s commission. On multi-million dollar properties, some of his referral fees have been over $50,000!

Which Real Estate Side Hustles Are Best?

In choosing the real estate investments that are best for you, you need to take into account:

the time you have available
your existing handyman skills (or lack thereof!)
your available capital

For me, I’ve concentrated my efforts so far on online and traditional REITs and short-term real estate loans. What about you? Let me know in the comments below!

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Could you launch a million-dollar business this weekend?

You might remember Noah Kagan from Episode 237 about brainstorming and validating business ideas.

Noah is a serial entrepreneur and founder of AppSumo, The Noah Kagan Youtube channel, Noah Kagan Presents podcast, and several other successful ventures.

His new book is Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours.

Throughout our conversation, we brainstormed numerous side hustle business ideas that listeners could pursue this year.

Noah also shared his insights on idea validation, launching quickly, and much more.

Tune in to Episode 595 of The Side Hustle Show to learn:

How to quickly validate and launch a side hustle idea
Multiple promising side hustle concepts to pursue in 2024
The importance of pre-selling a product idea before building it
Why services businesses make for promising first side hustles
Actionable tips for overcoming “analysis paralysis” and launching faster

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Validating and Launching Shrimp Breeding

I asked Noah how he comes up with some of his unique business ideas like shrimp breeding.

Noah explained that many ideas come from simply paying attention to the content you consume and products you use.

For example, there is a guy called Dustin’s Fish Tanks, a YouTube channel by a guy who reviews fish tanks and now makes over $1 million per year.

He began by reviewing fish tanks, but it soon turned into him making his own and selling them.

The key is to reverse engineer where current trends and interests lie based on how you spend your time and money. 

You can also review your credit card statements to spark ideas. AppSumo was born out of Noah’s desire to get deals on tools he was already buying.

Listen-Option-Transition

Ultimately, the best test for an idea is to validate it directly with paying customers. Noah outlined a simple process for doing this:

Listen to the customer’s needs (ask questions to understand needs/frustrations)
Suggest an Option to solve their problem
Transition to asking for the sale or next step commitment

For example, Noah is exploring a DocuSign alternative (which is valued at $11 billion) because e-signatures cost him $30 monthly.

His team vets ideas using these criteria:

Virality – Does it lend itself to word-of-mouth growth?
Subscription Competition – Are people already paying subscriptions for this regularly?
Excitement – How fired up are you personally about the idea?
Million Dollar Potential – Is there a path to $1M in profit over the years?

This framework led them to create “AppSumo Originals” which are tools like:

SendFox (MailChimp alternative)
TidyCal (Calendly alternative)
KingSumo (Gleam alternative)

Rather than reinvent the wheel, model what already works and make it better like Noah does.

If the customer says no, you can ask for referrals to find better qualified prospects. Stick with one idea initially until you have 100 paying customers. Don’t jump around constantly chasing shiny objects.

Launching Side Hustle Ideas

Here are some other key takeaways from Noah on quickly validating and launching side hustle ideas:

Don’t overthink ideas – The best idea is the one you start. You’ll inevitably repeat.
Look at trends – Monitor Google Trends and other sites to assess demand. Avoid dying or declining industries.
Estimate the market size – Check Facebook audience sizes and spending data. Ask ChatGPT for estimates of customer counts and spending on competitors.
Practice starting – Challenge yourself to start something new daily, even if tiny. Example, ask someone for $1 just to get used to taking action.
Deliver first, then expand – Resist the urge to constantly change course. Stick to an idea once it gains initial traction.

It’s important to avoid analysis paralysis and just put yourself out there. Build momentum around ideas that show early promise.

Building Your Dream 10 List

You may have a great business concept, but how do you efficiently validate whether real customers actually want it?

Noah recommends creating what he calls a “Dream List” as the first step in testing demand.

The Dream 10 is a list of 10 ideal customers who would highly benefit from your offering. This forces you to get clear on your target customer profile beyond “everyone.”

Some easy ways to build your list:

Inbox Mining

Scroll through the past couple years of emails in Gmail or Outlook and flag any contacts related to your concept.

For example, if you had a document signing service, you’d search for instances of DocuSign.

Service Providers

Note your professional services providers like lawyers, accountants, agencies etc. and contacts who could validate demand.

The key is quickly compiling a list of 10 people receptive to your idea to reach out for feedback rather than trying to validate more broadly. It may feel uncomfortable reaching out at first, but it is necessary to overcome assumptions.

Starting with Services

When diving into a new business idea, our natural inclination is to start building a product like a mobile app or web software platform.

However, most successful side hustlers take a more strategic approach initially by offering services first.

Some benefits of kicking off with services:

Lower Barriers to Entry

Offering one-to-one services like consulting, freelancing, coaching, etc. has far lower startup costs than engineering a complex technology product from scratch.

You may only need a website, scheduling software, and marketing materials to get started.

Faster Revenue

Because services are sold on a recurring basis (hourly, monthly retainers, etc.), you get paid continually as you deliver value rather than waiting months or years for product development.

This positive feedback loop also helps fund product creation down the road.

Better Customer Insights

Every client you work with gives future product insights from their unique problems and desired outcomes.

Over time you can identify common themes to integrate as features that meet the widest range of needs.

Pre-Selling the Idea

Before spending significant time or money building a product, entrepreneurs should pre-sell it.

Noah shared an example where his team spent 6 months building a Klaviyo alternative called MeetFam. But after launching, they struggled to attract customers.

That’s why he recommends first selling the product concept before ever building it. He outlined 3 options to test demand:

Pre-Sales Outreach – Directly pitch your network through outreach.
Marketplace Listings – Post the product for sale on platforms like Craigslist and Facebook to gauge interest.
Paid Ads – Create a landing page and run ads promoting the product.

Noah prefers the first approach of pre-sales outreach because it’s faster and you get real money in your pocket.

His goal would be to secure $2,500 in pre-sales to confirm the concept and cover initial development costs.

Customers understand you need time to deliver the final product after payment.

I noted this “pre-sell then build” approach has proven successful for many entrepreneurs and big brands. For example, Tesla sold reservations years before ever manufacturing their mainstream vehicles.

Overcoming Service Business Growing Pains

Transitioning from solopreneur to having employees is tempting but tricky.

Noah highlights Adam Gilbert who bootstrapped My Body Tutor, a 7-figure online fitness coaching company, as proof it’s possible.

Adam coached all his clients personally for many years assuming nobody could match his level of service.

Despite assumptions that no other coach could match his level of personalization and results, Adam finally decided to test hiring help a few years back.

By finding coaches with similar values, My Body Tutor was able to expand its customer base dramatically.

Now Adam is able to focus more time on fine-tuning the company’s training processes and team rather than direct client delivery.

The key is finding team members who share your vision rather than complete replacements.

More Side Hustle Ideas

Here are more side hustle ideas that listeners could pursue:

Become a Software Consultant

Build an agency around popular platforms like Notion, Shopify etc. You can sell training and custom implementations. Thomas Frank earns over $2 million selling Notion templates.

Visa Services

Help people maneuver and expedite cumbersome visa processes, especially for popular digital nomad destinations.

Christmas Lights Installation

Provide Christmas lights installation, removal, and storage services for homes and businesses.

Upscale Nanny Placement

Place qualified nannies with families seeking childcare. Focus on reliability and trust.

DocuSign Competitor

Build a cheaper alternative to the $11 billion e-signature company DocuSign. Pre-sell it first to prove demand.

Guest Booking for Podcasts and Shows

If you have a way to book high-profile guests, Noah is willing to pay up to $20,000 to land certain billionaires.

Accountability Goal Services

Help clients achieve personal and professional goals via financial incentives and accountability coaching. A good example is HealthyWage’s monetary goal achievement model to encourage people to lose weight.

Pre-Mixed Coffee Protein Drinks

Launch pre-made coffee mixed with protein powder or collagen to simplify morning routines.

I’m energized by the sheer range of promising concepts Noah shared off the cuff. It reminds all of us not to fixate on any one rigid approach to side hustling. Opportunities abound if you experiment broadly.

Noah’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Now, not how.”

Final Takeaways

Are you chasing mice or antelopes? Don’t put the same effort into small payoff activities versus big vision projects.
Piggyback on rising interests and platforms like TikTok, Shopify, Notion etc. rather than reinvent the wheel to drive demand.
Pre-sell a minimum viable version of your idea before expending months of effort attempting to build a perfect finished product. Let the market guide your priorities.
Initially provide hands-on services to start making money faster, gain expertise, and better understand customer needs. Worry about packaging them into products later.

Episode Links

Side Hustle Show Episode 237
AppSumo
The Noah Kagan Youtube channel
Noah Kagan Presents podcast
Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours.
Dustin’s Fish Tanks
DocuSign
AppSumo Originals
SendFox
TidyCal
KingSumo
Klaviyo
My Body Tutor
Thomas Frank
HealthyWage

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.