Real estate license

john

The key to their rapid expansion: Rachel had her real estate license. That afforded them two big advantages, Richards says. One was speed. “If you have a license, you have a slight time advantage because you can literally get notified of properties that are being listed in real time,” she says. “So there were times where I had a search set up that if something, that if a property met my criteria, it would immediately email me if something was listed. At times I could be out to that property within 30 minutes of it being listed and be the first one to make an offer.”

She also acted as her own buyer’s agent, meaning she earned a commission from the seller when she bought a property. “Any time we would close on one of our properties, basically we would fully deplete our savings to buy a property, but then I would immediately get a commission check back for thousands of dollars,” Richards says. “Sometimes it would be like 10 grand. So that would jump-start the savings for the next down payment.”

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Aside from the first duplex, most of the properties that the couple acquired were move-in ready and were already being rented, Richards says. From there, Richards looked for properties in which she thought she could make $200 to $300 in monthly profits per unit.

The couple ceased buying new properties in 2018. They now spend about 5 to 10 hours a week managing the properties. All in all, the profits total around $8,000 per month, Richards says.

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At first, Richards says, she was enamored with the idea of getting a traditional book deal. But she learned that many publishers expect authors to do the majority of their own promotion and marketing in exchange for a 10% to 15% royalty. Whereas “if you self-publish on Amazon, you can earn 35% to 70%,” she says. “So I figured, why am I going to pay them, essentially, if they’re not going to really do anything to help me market my books?”

After self-publishing her book on Amazon, Richards says she recouped her money within the first month. Since then, the book, along with her follow-up, “Passive Income, Aggressive Retirement,” have flown off the virtual shelves, netting Richards about $4,000 a month in royalties.

Richards also offers an eight-week online course, which is another source of passive income for the couple. The course, which costs $497 and is called “Get Your Financial $hit Together,” generates about $4,000 a month in profit for Richards.

john

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