Andrew Lisa

Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 9:03 AM5 min read

Passive income is better than any side hustle because the money comes to you without you having to put much elbow grease into it. You’ll read about all kinds of ways to generate this extra cash flow, but most won’t earn the typical person more than some extra spending money at best, whether it’s dog walking or affiliate marketing.

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Aside from not having to spend too much time generating passive income, it may be important to you to strive for options that require little or no upfront investment. However, if you want to make some real money without having to exchange labor for your earnings — say, $50,000 a year — you’re going to have to pay to play.

The following is a look at a few ways to generate a heavy flow of passive income. Most of them require a significant cash investment, but if you’ve been diligently stuffing funds into an emergency savings account or have been collecting dividend income through your stock market investment strategy, you can put your money to work for you instead of the reverse. Here are five ways to consider.

Investing in real estate and owning a rental property is probably the most desired form of passive income — but scouting properties, screening tenants, property management, performing maintenance and being a landlord is not for everyone.

Sites like Doorvest take care of all of that for you. Here are a few key takeaways:

• Doorvest charges a 10% monthly property management fee based on the gross rent received from the property.

• You don’t pay a management fee if the property is vacant. This aligns their incentives with the investor’s, encouraging them to find and keep tenants in place.

• Doorvest also offers a premium property management plan at a higher fee of about 23% that includes benefits like an ongoing rent guarantee and maintenance credit

You tell them about your ideal investment home and submit a fully refundable deposit, which puts you on a three- to four-week waiting list. When you reserve your perfect home, Doorvest buys it, renovates it, finds long-term tenants and, once you close, you own the home and begin building equity and generating passive rental income.

Everything is guaranteed, and their average rental home sells for $225,000 with a $45,000 down payment. How quickly you get to $50,000 depends on your property value and the rent you charge, but you can factor in appreciation and lucrative tax cuts as part of your long-term profits.