Real Estate Profits From Home With Your Computer

Real estate investing courses have always been big sellers on infomercials, and now all over the internet.  You find them on Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and anywhere you look after you've done a search for them online.

Real estate investing isn't exactly a simple business you can run with your computer.  Although, there was a course I looked into recently that claimed to allow you to make money in real estate with your computer without even leaving home.

It turned out to be a plan to do real estate "wholesaling", where you get properties under contract, and then try to sell the contract to a "real" investor.  For the most part you could supposedly do most everything with your computer.  The actual methods they recommended weren't really anything special though.  Basically using Zillow, Craigslist and Facebook ads.  These do qualify as using your computer, but that's about the extent of it.  So I didn't really learn any secret methods for finding properties to buy dirt cheap, which is obviously the hardest but most important part of the plan.

I did at least learn some tips on selling properties as quickly as possible.  And one thing I found out on my own is the importance of proper home staging.  This is literally arranging the inside of the house to appear completely furnished and ready to live in.  The idea is to keep the house from looking either too empty, or too over cluttered with stuff that needs to go.

So the importance of home staging can't be underestimated. According to Home Staging Delaware, properties that are staged well sell faster and for higher prices than their non-staged comparable properties.  The money you spend to do this preparation (or hire someone to do it for you) is usually much less than what you would probably lose by having to lower the selling price to get more decent offers, so it's a no brainer kind of decision.

So whether or not you believe you could buy and sell real estate from home at your computer...trust me on the importance of home staging when you happen to be selling a property!

eBay Keeps Going and Going

Getting back to basics...eBay is still one of the best ways to make money with your computer.  So many other online auction sites that have tried to compete with eBay have come and gone over the years, but eBay just keeps going and going.  It's evolved a little bit over time, but it's still basically the same as it's always been.

If you have a few things you'd like to sell and have never tried it, check out eBay.com.  And if you might have forgotten how quick and easy it can be to sell things on it, maybe you should give it fresh look.  eBay is still one of my favorite ways to sell things when I need to.

There's also another way to make money using eBay other than simply selling things yourself, which a lot of people aren't even aware of.  You can register to be an eBay affiliate, and when people buy something using your unique link you'll earn a small commission.  Check out http://pages.ebay.com/affiliate/referral.html to learn all the details.

How To Make Money With Your Tablet or Smartphone

A lot of changes have occurred since I first started this blog nearly ten years ago. (Wow, how time flies!)

The internet has grown into something seemingly larger than life itself - even available for free in many "hotspots" that offer free wifi.

Google has become a household word and the most famous search engine of choice, even being used as a verb for finding whatever information you're looking for.  No need to wrack your brain to try to remember any details from the past or present...just Google it in seconds.

Computer hardware itself has changed a lot, too.  The equipment has become smaller and wireless, and memory storage is not only smaller in size but huge in capacity.  In fact, computers have almost been replaced now by laptops, tablets and even smartphones.

I know I titled this blog "How To Make Money With Your Computer", but now it seems appropriate to turn our attention to ways you can make money with what everyone is using NOW:

Tablets and Smartphones!

One of the most obvious ways to make money with your tablet or smartphone is designing and creating new apps.  No doubt, there is a lot of competition in this field now, but there's always room for more.  Nobody can get enough apps, and they're usually free to download until you buy a more expanded version, so everybody loves to try new ones.

However, unless you're an actual programmer, you'll need to hire someone to do the hard part and get your app idea created for you, so you'll need to invest some money to do so.  But hey, it takes money to make money, and all businesses require at least a small amount of money to get started, so this is no different.  Look to negotiate a fair price with a private party so it's a win-win deal for both of you.

Some good websites to find people to work with on your app ideas are freelancer.com and elance.com, and also fiverr.com for smaller jobs.

There are also quite a few existing apps that are designed to help you make money in various ways. You can easily find them yourself by "Googling" for them, of course, but here are just a few good ones that I've found:

Gigwalk, GigGo, Field Agent, Fiverr, Earn Money/Recharge, QuickCash, InBoxDollars

You can also sell your stuff with apps like Wallapop, Letgo, OfferUp, Etsy, VarageSale, as well as CraigsList and Ebay. (Some things never change!)  And some of the worlds most popular social networks like Facebook and Instagram are being used by many people to sell things.  Facebook even allows placement of highly targeted ads based on whatever reader interests you want to sell to.

There are tons things people are doing to make money, so you can do it too!  The more ideas you look for, the more you can find.  So dive in and give a few of these a try to get started!

Good luck, and have fun making money with your smartphone or tablet!