Since the pandemic broke out, people have had to live behind Zoom screens, so they’ve been trying to figure out how to earn some extra money. With a revenue of 9.5 billion US dollars, real estate can be a great side gig if you’re interested. If you’re already working a 9-5 job, real estate as a side job is a fantastic way to supplement your income.
Real estate is a huge industry. However, if you want to start a real estate side hustle, you can start by doing Bird dogging, working as a Virtual Assistant, flipping houses, photography for real estate, and creating an informative real estate blog. You can also do bookkeeping, wholesale, and crowdfunding for real estate.
Is Real Estate a Good Side Hustle
Real estate is a great industry for making extra cash. The best part is, some real estate side hustles don’t even require you to have any real estate knowledge, so you can start making money right away.
Real estate market is expected to grow from 9.5 billion in 2021 to 14.8 billion by 2030. So it offers a good opportunity to enter, even as a side hustle.
Flexibility, career opportunities and incomes with no limits, real estate side hustles open many options for people of all kinds.
So let’s look at the 10 different side hustles in real estate that can earn you money.
Best Side Hustles in Real Estate
No matter what level of experience you have or what level of knowledge you have about real estate, you can make serious money by using these real estate side hustles.
1. Bird dog
Being a Bird dog is a simple real estate side hustle that you can do after work if you have spare time. The term Bird dog refers to someone who finds properties that are undervalued on behalf of property investors in exchange for a fee or a percentage of the sale price.
How Much You Can Earn
Typically, Bird dogs charge based on their skill level, time spent generating leads, and the quality of those leads. As a rule of thumb, Bird dogs generally charge $100 to $500 per closed deal for flat rate referrals. If a Bird dog plans to charge a percentage of profit for referrals, then the percentage can vary between 2% and 10%.
What You Need
Getting paid to be a Bird dog isn’t easy. The market conditions and where you work play a big role. In order to get good leads, you need relevant knowledge and skills, so learn about Bird dog on social media and take a closer look at the real estate market. You can make more money if you know how to network and build a good reputation.
The most important skills are market research, analytical skills and communication. Bird dogs spend a lot of time by doing research, analyzing properties and talk to either sellers or buyers.
2. Virtual Assistant
Professionals are just too busy to handle all the little stuff that keeps a business operating smoothly. This is when you need a Virtual Assistant, which can be a great real estate hustle for beginners.
Virtual Assistants can schedule meetings, respond to phones, handle social media accounts, and answer emails, which are essential for realtors to run their businesses smoothly.
How Much You Can Earn
Real estate Virtual Assistants earn on average $24.42 an hour and get bonuses when homes sell. However, some Virtual Assistants work on the basis of a monthly retainer payment in advance. If you work 20 hours a week, you might get a retainer fee of $2,000 a month.
What You Need
If you’re good at setting up meetings, answering calls, replying to emails, and completing paperwork, becoming a real estate VA can be a great real estate side hustle for you.
So good communications skills are also required and good proficiency working with tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, or Google Docs and Sheets are also welcomed.
3. Flip Houses
Flipping houses is a great real estate side hustle, and you don’t need a license to do it. House flipping means buying inexpensive houses and renovating them so that they can be sold for a profit. However, you need to be out there in order to meet with the contractors and craftsmen or handymen who will be doing the renovations.
How Much You Can Earn
House flipping can bring in anywhere from $45,000 to $70,000 with a 20%-40% profit margin. In some cases, you’ll have to find partners in other cities, depending on your market and home prices. Flipping the house within six months will save you a lot of holding costs, and the money can be used to invest in more properties.
What You Need
In comparison to other real estate side hustles, flipping homes is more expansive because there’s some initial capital you have to save up for or get financed. House flipping isn’t easy, but the rewards are worth it if you do it right.
4. Real Estate Marketing
Almost every business relies on marketing to succeed, and real estate is no different. As a real estate side hustle, marketing involves building effective marketing campaigns for clients’ sales and purchases. The importance of real estate marketing cannot be overstated for any real estate agent, broker, landlord, or investor.
How Much You Can Earn
Real estate marketers make a lot based on the quality of their services and how many other services they offer as a package. When you offer multiple services like content creation, content writing, and advertising or SEO for real estate clients, you’ll make up to $5,000 a month as a “solo marketer”.
But if you want to scale your side business, you can start a marketing agency and make much more than 60,000 dollars per year.
What You Need
There’s nothing special about real estate marketing. It works like any other type of marketing. Having a good grasp of marketing funnels is essential to real estate marketing. To better understand real estate marketing, check out real estate websites and events.
5. Real Estate Investment Trust
Investing in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) can be a lucrative real estate side job that produces dividend income and constant profits. A Real Estate Investment Trust manages and holds a portfolio of real estate properties.
How Much You Can Earn
REITs have the advantage of being required to distribute 90% of their earnings to their shareholders as dividends. These stocks usually pay monthly dividends of 6%+, so you can make money on the side.
Also, the 10-year average annual return of the FTSE NAREIT Equity REIT Index was 8.34%.
What You Need
You should look for a REIT that’s growing its earnings. Among the things you need to look for are higher revenues (more occupancy, more rent), reduced costs, and opportunities for growth.
Furthermore, you should conduct research on the management team that oversees the properties of the REIT. A good management team can upgrade and enhance unutilized buildings to increase demand.
6. Photography
If you’re a pro, you might be able to make a living taking photos for realtors. As a real estate side hustle, this gives you a lot of flexibility over your hours. A real estate photographer can help sellers or landlords market their properties, or take photos for marketing purposes in general.
How Much You Can Earn
It is possible for photographers to earn between $100 and $1000+ by taking real estate pictures. Getting a part-time job at a photography shop or getting in touch with a realtor is the best way to access these opportunities.
What You Need
The only thing you need to start photography as a real estate side job is to have a high-quality camera. Aside from that, it is important to have a good photography portfolio that you can display to your clients in order to be hired as a photographer.
7. Blogging
A real estate blog can be a great real estate side job to reach out to your audience, especially if you are proficient in both writing and SEO. However, compared to other real estate side hustles, this one doesn’t pay off right away.
Once your blog has an audience, you can begin making passive income by adding affiliate marketing links. When people click on your links and buy something through them, you will earn a small commission.
How Much You Can Earn
When you have a real estate blog up and running, you can earn $500-$1000 in a month, and then you can scale it to make thousands more. There are even sites like Flippa.com where you can flip your blog for 25X or 30X your monthly profit.
What You Need
If you plan to start a real estate blog or any blog, you should be familiar with that field beforehand. Besides that, you’ve got to possess a good writing style and a good grasp of grammar to provide high quality content to your audience. For your blog to rank on Google, make sure you know SEO.
8. Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a wonderful real estate side hustle if you can’t buy a rental property or don’t have the money for a mortgage. A real estate crowdfunding platform pools funds from various investors with the goal of investing in commercial and residential property.
How Much You Can Earn
There is scope for real estate crowdfunding to make good money. Depending on the platform, you may be able to earn returns ranging from 2% up to 20%. Crowdfunding for real estate is still viewed as a risky investment. Like stock markets, there are no return guarantees, so your investment could go down the drain.
What You Need
Real estate crowdfunding is a great way to invest in real estate. However, you must do your homework based on your goals. It is also important to ensure that the actual investment transaction will be as simple as possible.
As with any investment, real estate crowdfunding has no guarantee of returns. Because of that, you have to think carefully about your goals and the level of risk of your investment.
9. Bookkeeping
When it comes to the real estate market, successful investors know what to look for when purchasing or selling a property. Contrary to this, they usually delegate the responsibility of keeping the books to someone else.
Bookkeeping as a real estate side hustle involves tracking how much money comes in and goes out. Investing in real estate is a complicated process, and knowing if your investments make sense is crucial for a new investor.
How Much You Can Earn
A real estate bookkeeper earns an average salary of $35,000-$48,000 per year or $25 per hour. Those starting at entry-level earn $25,000-$35,000 per year, while those with professional experience earn up to $60,000 annually.
What You Need
As a real estate side job, bookkeeping is easy thanks to today’s modern software, which automatically calculates income and expenses. It’s not necessary to have a degree in accounting to start bookkeeping for real estate.
For clients who do not feel comfortable using automated softwares, you can go for softwares like Quickbooks or Xero, but these require a degree in accounting or finance.
10. Wholesaling
Lastly, real estate wholesaling is on our list of real estate side hustles. The wholesaling process is similar to flipping a house, except that the property doesn’t belong to you. Instead, discover the deals, sign contracts for them, and then assign the contracts to real estate investors you know.
How Much You Can Earn
Real estate wholesale is a great way to make extra money quickly, and if you become experienced enough in it, then it’s possible for you to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing wholesale.
An average commission for a real estate wholesaler is $7500 per each property.
What You Need
Doing wholesale as a real estate side job won’t cost any money, and success can be achieved even by beginners. In some states, you must have a license to do real estate wholesaling. It’s just a matter of building a network and connecting investors with the right properties.
How to Do Real Estate on the Side
There are many real estate side hustles available for anyone who wants to earn extra income or pursue a career in the industry. However, doing real estate as a side job depends on many other factors, including your spare time, dedication to learning if you’re a newbie, and good lead generation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is being a realtor hard?
Being a realtor means a lot of freedom and money. However, it does not imply that all people succeed in it. In the same vein as any other career, being a realtor requires a lot of effort and perseverance. When it comes to selling homes, it is imperative that you have good communication skills.
How long does it take to be successful in real estate?
Everyone has a different timeframe for becoming a successful realtor. If you’re serious about real estate, you should educate yourself about all the nitty-gritty. To become a successful realtor, you will need to spend between six months and a year learning the ropes.
What is the most lucrative side hustle of real estate?
Real estate investing can be so profitable that you might quit your job to focus on it full-time. One of the most lucrative aspects of real estate is that it can produce six-figure profits in a very short period of time if you have the right skills and knowledge.
Two most common and lucrative ways to make profits from investing in properties are through:
- Appreciation – increasing value of the property (increasing of location attractiveness, reconstruction, or development)
- Or rent – buying and renting properties – creating a cashflow.
Conclusion
So, that’s all about it. Here’s everything you need to know about the different real estate side hustles, you can start today and start making money. Selling and buying properties isn’t the only thing that goes into real estate jobs. Take a look at each real estate side hustle carefully, and do not be afraid to give them a try.
Having a side hustle means you don’t have to commit a lot of time. Real estate is a great side hustle for many people, and they eventually quit their regular jobs to do it full-time. If you’re thinking of starting a side hustle, make sure you know your state’s licensing requirements or paperwork.
