The tenant finally has a new, working water heater. Hooray. The contractor was even did a temporary fix for the basement door, without me asking, which makes me happy. As long as he can respond to my calls timely, I will be using him for every repair I need. Turns out that he also is a landlord himself, so I’ll be milking him for lots of advice/tips, for sure.

After speaking to a good friend of mine, I’m going to give this landlording business a chance. It is passive income after all, and I don’t really want to give that up. I feel I have a good tenant, so as long as the property is decent, I should be okay. I think my rant yesterday was a result of momentary insanity caused by frustration. So let’s see.

On the vending business front, I’m in the process of signing up with a charity, and then I’m going to hire a locating service to place the machine so I don’t have to pay a commission every month. The service charges only $31 and they offer a money back guarantee with results within a week of ordering. They’ll even relocate for free if I get kicked out within 90 days for any reason.

On the perfume business front, I’m closing my Paypal account. They have instituted a new “policy” where they can hold your funds for whatever amount of time they please. The letter states that it is not because I did anything wrong, but because they want to implement a new policy to “protect” me. I received this information after receiving a new order for almost $100 from a new client through the iOffer.com store. So guess what? I told them, with a selection of choice words, that I don’t need to use their service anymore. So I instructed them to refund the transaction to the buyer and close my account. In the meantime, the buyer paid me via Google Checkout (with NO problems whatsoever, of course), and I’ll be processing the order today. It’s so nice to have a choice with payment processors.

passive income · Paypal sucks ass · perfume business · real estate rentals · vending business

Even though I’m holding down a 9-5 job and an active real estate agent business, I recognize the importance of having passive income streams. I want to work at stuff I enjoy, and I want to have more time, money and freedom to do what I want (like travel to every possible food festival, but that’s another dream). So I’ve made a list of things that I could create to bring in passive income, and I believe I can make it happen. Here’s the list:

• Creating programs for mobile devices: Since I’m a programmer just three classes shy of a degree, I might as well use the skills I’ve got. I’ve resisted it for a while, but what’s the point of paying all those student loans if I’m not going to use the skills I paid to learn? It’s akin to graduating from law school and never practicing law. I don’t want to be wasteful of my talents. If I can teach myself PHP, I’m sue I can figure out the Blackberry and iPhone. I have two ideas for programs already: one to improve an existing program that’s pretty horrible, and the other is a utility that I believe lots of people will use. I have a Blackberry myself, so I already have a platform to test on. I can’t talk about the ideas until I do some more research.
• Writing articles that bring in money over time: I’m starting to experiment with eHow.com and other sites ever since I found this post at the Smart Passive Income blog. I’ve written two articles so far. I’ll be writing articles for the rest of the month and provide an update during the first week of April.
• ATMs: I connected with another agent who swears by her machines. She’s always looking to place more machines, and I think I can duplicate her success. I’ve already found quite a few places that would benefit from an ATM. I may partner with her on my first machine.  This will require some capital unless I decide to lease, so I have to make a decision quickly and get on it.
• Creating ebooks: this is an idea that I wanted to pursue for a long time. I’d written down in an idea book that I lost, but I never forgot the name I created for it. I’ve already reserved the domain name and will have my first item created by the end of April. This will be connected to the eHow business.
• Real estate rentals: I want to acquire as many condos as possible and rent them out. I don’t want houses because I don’t want to deal with fixing roofs, damp basements, etc. The properties can be acquired with a loan or sub2. This is my least favorite idea however, since it requires the most upfront investment.

This is my short list of passive income ideas to pursue. Time to get crackin’!

ATMs · automation · business ideas · computer programming · ebooks · passive income · real estate rentals · writing good articles