Midwest rental properties, hire a management company to run them. No effort on your part after the empire is established.
You always need to manage the manager, so it's never completely passive unless you're investing in something like a syndication. In any event, performance should be reviewed regularly no matter what RE type you're investing in.
But I suggested something similar many pages ago without much interest. It's not for everybody so I sort of understand. But the advantageous are very numerous over any other investment that I know of. It's done well for me, I plan to retire before I'm 40...by replacing my income, not building a nest egg. And "retire" just means quit corporate job and do what I want, when I want but I'll still need to do something. Probably continue to build real estate portfolio business. We'll see, nothing is certain.
I keep thinking about the real estate angle, but I’ve never gotten confident that it would get me better than a 7% IRR if done completely passively. I like to nerd out on playing the tax game with different investment vehicles, but owning and managing property does nothing for me.
7% IRR would be a pretty mundane deal even if paying a manager.
I have some that are managed by a manager and some that I do myself. The stuff I self manage I did a cash out refinance on a while back. Very little money left of mine into that deal. I get around 60% of my cash invest back each year. I've already returned my investment back to myself, so technically it's infinite return at this point.
The stuff I have a manager handle is still being stabilized. Some work needed done, rents raised, etc. I should get anywhere between 12-18% cash on cash return from those. However, IRR would be much higher after tax savings, principle pay down, etc.
But like I said, it's not as hands off as dropping money in the market so I know it's not for everyone. But I hate my job (and frankly it's a pretty good place to work) so I want out so bad it doesn't matter. I'll do what I have to. But I also like acquiring real estate. Not everything is perfect about it tho. But when building a business, which is what it eventually becomes if you grow, you start to hand off things you don't like to do.
