The websites where you bid to work on stuff (freelance.com for example) are a race to the bottom - you're always going to be competing with people who are prepared to work for $5 an hour (... and customers who now expect that is how much a developer's time is worth). This might be fine where you live however - I don't know.
Side projects are a possibility, but I feel that getting paying customers is too much of a hassle for dip-in/dip-out stuff like this ... you've got to actually build something people want to pay for in the first place (no easy task!) then handle support, billing, marketing etc. Too much like trying to bootstrap your own startup and not so much a I-wanna-code-for-some-easy-money-when-I-feel-like-it kinda thing.
I've had some success with websites + AdSense in the past. It can take a while to take-off, but once it does it can earn a nice little bit on the side. It is not really coding though.
I've been mulling over-ideas. A few stick out:
- become a private tutor. Do a few hours a week teaching kids how to code in their homes.
- youtube channel specialising in coding tutorials or demos etc. Build up a series of playlists about certain subjects, take suggestions, patreon-based "extra value" etc and of course ads revenue share from youtube. Move around in various "hot" techs - Unity, Vue.js etc - something beginner friendly. Could also be a really interesting learning experience at the same time.
- writing freeware stuff (think Nirsoft style stuff) and accepting donations/patreon.
Good luck
I moved to the Bay Area but where I grew up, most of my family lives there still and the real estate is cheap there (Upstate NY). I started buying properties last year while my family does the day-to-day management that requires physical presence.
Its been a great way to learn something in a new industry that is not related to work, and has given me a more business-minded perspective (being a business owner and landlord) which helps me take on a slightly more ownership-mentality at my day job.
Did you research anything related to local area (ex: schools, major corp like G.E. used to be in Schenectady etc) that would ensure steady occupancy?
> I started buying properties
Guessing atleast a couple, if not more... so how do you get loans for investment multiple investment properties?
AFAIK Bank demand higher downpayment ( atleast 30% or more) and also have higher interest rates.
I have a couple now, and so far I've been lucky to get financing from family members. The plan is to refinance the loans with the bank after the first year or two and re-use the money for new purchases.
When we run out of private money we'll go to the banks. We've applied already for the houses we've gotten because we didnt know we would be able to secure private money. I saw downpayment amounts varying from 20-25% for personal loans and 25-30% for business loans (if you're buying with an LLC).
With the interest rates the banks charge its still doable in our area, the private money interest rates are higher in at least one case and both are 15yrs (vs the 30yr we would want to go for with the bank).
Iirc you can get up to 10 personal mortgages in your name before needing to resort to small business loans, so if you're just starting off, you've got room to grow.
If you are starting off and live in the town you will be investing in, I highly read up on house hacking, which there are a few articles on the topic at biggerpockets.com (this was a great source of info when I was starting off, I recommend most of their books too).
edit: Also note that downpayment requirements vary by location, and if banks offer it, its much better to go for their portfolio of loans if they offer fixed rates (unfortunately, all the banks in my area only offer ARM loans) because the closing costs are lower (portfolio loans are not sold to the big banks, so the closing cost fees are not dictated by them).
We didn't do much research in the way of occupancy. Because its remote Im limited to the towns around us that is convenient for my family to visit. We played with the idea of getting an apartment building from another distant relative that owned one, but weren't ready for hiring the staff that came along with it (and the cost since it had a restriction to low-income housing for the next 6 years, which made it hard to make a profit off it to start. We may revisit when we have a better base to cover potential short-termlosses).
Generally from what we saw with no new housing being built in our town we knew we would be able to get someone to rent it to at least break-even. Our second option was to partner with an organization that helps subsidize low-income housing, since some offer partnerships that involve fixing things that their tenants break and helping cover costs for repairs.
mostly curated lists and color tools. Make one of these, make it well designed.
step 2: market. Get on ph/reddit/hn for an initial user spike. If you're lucky a blog or two will link to you as a part of their "40 design/dev tools for june" listicles.
3: profit! With decent traffic carbon or adsense can net $xxx a month.
If you are inclined to not just fill your wallet but also your time, consider picking up a non-work hobby that you can charge for?
Things like 2d and 3d digital art or music have a commission scenes where, if you put yourself out there, you can make some money.
Art might not be your thing. Maybe it's yoga or woodworking. And it might take a few years (for me, three years of practicing digital 2d art to start taking commissions), but you get to expand beyond what you do for 8 hours already.
You're asking for easy money. That doesn't exist in a free market society.
Eventually.
But early on, though, before everybody and their brother found out about it, it could be lucrative.
I'd even opt-out of taking the money for the entertainment value.
Also you'd have to go over a VPN to mask your IP address. And, when signing up for Mechanical Turk, you need to give a bunch of real info if you ever hope to extract payment.
I'd say it's unethical to put the outcome of medical research into the hands of unknown Mechanical Turk workers without any oversight.