28 Profitable Real Estate Business Ideas You Can Start In 2021

It hasn't always been easy. I've had many different businesses over my life. I first started purchasing, renovating, and reselling apartment buildings. I started with a 5-unit building in Los Angeles and after selling it successfully, I purchased a completely dilapidated 66-unit building that scared me to death! But I made it through and over those first years made over one million dollars.

I rolled the dice and continued to buy, renovate, and sell until the bottom dropped out of the market. On January 17, 1994, the Northridge Earthquake devastated Southern California. During this period there was a negative migration in Los Angeles and our vacancy rates hit 40%. Being unable to support the mortgages, I lost all of my properties - over 250 units.

From 1994 to 1999, I started a company from scratch that built homes in Mexico. I sold insurance, ran an automatic door company, was the general manager for a bicycle specialty company, and sold copper pipe.

I stumbled into real estate. There is no personal history with real estate in my family or in anything I got into as a young kid trying to find my way.

I realized my real competitive edge was that I always picked up the phone, showed up every day and just did the work. Everyone always thinks there is some secret the most successful real estate agents keep to themselves.

My studies were actually centered in Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University (Go Green!). By Junior year it became apparent to me that I love animals but not so much the idea of being a Vet. So I did a 180 degree turn and finished with a Finance Major.

I never set out to start a software agency. Growing up I never thought I would be an entrepreneur, or even get into tech.

But when I got to college I decided to take an intro to Computer Science class. My plan at the time was to teach math in the Peace Corps. I didn’t like math enough to be a math major but figured Computer Science would be interesting and involve a lot of math.

Learn what makes you great and where you need help. It will be worth every penny.

I’ve been starting businesses since I was 15. During school, I worked part-time in a mobile phone store and learned how to fix phones. During the weekends, I started my own market stall and advertised online to fix phones, replace screens, and started to earn cash that way. During college, I scaled up this business to a physical location at the University I was attending here in Ireland. I approached the college and rented an office space from them and opened my first store!

I was terrified of running out of money and for the first 18 months, I ran the company entirely on my own. I remember one particular day where I met 18 different guests at 18 different locations across the city.

Between classes, I would work in the store and when I was in class, I hired classmates and friends to work for me. Looking back now, it was an incredibly fun time but I wish I hadn’t reinvested so much money in the college bar!

My background is varied as an experienced investor, management executive, and consultant. I’ve worked in several industries spanning technology, automotive, media, and entertainment. However, my passions include real estate design and architecture, investing, and travel. Living in London, Paris, Nice, Sydney, and Singapore has helped me develop a global perspective.

I’ve invested in residential real estate for nearly twenty years with experience ranging from new construction, to remodels and distressed assets. After the 2008 financial crash, I began acquiring foreclosures in California and Nevada at deep discounts. Based on this success, I decided to launch an investment fund.

While researching target markets, I noted that second homes in vacation destinations were taking longer to recover from the financial crises than primary residences and could be acquired at deep discounts. Cap rates were also attractive with the right vacation rentals able to generate as much rent in one week as many long-term rentals might generate in a month. It was also an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging trend for the shared use of assets.

I didn’t exactly come up with the initial idea for this company because this is a franchise which means for me that I license out the name “Skinny Wimp Moving”. However, because it was the first franchise location I was able to be in a prime decision-making seat and guinea pig for all ideas enabling me to test out theories on marketing and customer service which have no become standard across the brand.

Put yourself out there and ask for their business. Sure be conscious that you may get rejected but don’t be afraid to ask more than once. It won’t work every time but it will work 100% more than not trying at all.

We realized people simply don’t want a moving company that sucks. So we asked ourselves what can we do to make the stressful experience of moving suck a little less and the answers we came up with and stuck to were very common sense:

I can still remember my first day on the job. I had just been hired as a Chemist for a particle analysis laboratory.

The job made a lot of sense at the time. I had recently graduated college with a Biology degree, and there’s only so many careers the degree can take you. So I took the first job offer that was presented to me and proudly bragged about my $22,500 annual salary. It seemed like so much money at the time, and I just knew that I was going to climb the corporate ladder quickly.

The true secret to my success has been to simply outwork and outpassion everyone in my path, every single day for nearly twenty-five years

Back in 2013, I had already discovered my passion - personal development - and had realized writing is the best way to express myself. So I combined these and started a self-improvement blog.

Starting the blog was the best decision and not giving up on it over the years (even when no traffic or money was coming in) was what helped me move forward.

It was first just a hobby and I knew nothing about blogging. Over the years, after publishing a ton of content, gaining traffic, learning about SEO, email marketing, social media, and all the ways to monetize a blog, it became a real business.

I’m Clifton Muckenfuss, I am Co-Founder of Carolina Exteriors, a Specialty Replacement Contractor based in Apex, NC, serving the Raleigh Metro Area. Carolina Exteriors offers residential home improvement services including Roofing, Siding, Windows, Doors, and Gutters. We believe that if we “build people, we build a winning team and combined, we Build Exceptional Customer Experiences. Our dedication to our people and customers and execution on our mission has led to us receiving numerous industry awards for customer service.

We bootstrapped the business on $3,500 and now 9 years later generate $4,000,000 in revenue.

Hello, I’m Andy Zhao, Ark7’s Founder & CEO. I have previously worked for Google, Uber, LinkedIn, and Twitter, with more than 10 years in the tech industry.

Currently, Ark7 has 7 properties located in Berkeley, Austin, and Seattle. Users can visit our website and sign up for free to see full disclosures of our property information and start their real estate investment today. The total value of Ark7 is $8.74 million and the total investment value is $5.5 million.