10 Best Ways To Invest $100,000 – I Saw A 55% ROI In Under A Year

Once you have $100,000 or more to invest, it’s time to pay close attention to where you put those funds.

With the stock market at an all-time high, it’s smart to play a little defense. After all, you don’t want to end up like the Brazilian ex-billionaire who went from a net worth of $30 billion to negative $1 billion in under a year.

At the same time, leaving your money in a savings account isn’t a great idea. The key to wealth is making your money work for you – and the sooner you can start doing that, the better off your finances will be.

So what are you to do? How can you keep your hard-earned cash relatively safe, while still making sure it grows?

I want to share with you my story of how I invested $100k, and also share 10 other ways to invest that can provide a solid return while minimizing your downside. From international real estate to robo-advisors, here are a few of the most secure ways to grow your wealth.

Just remember, all investments have a level of risk associated with them. Therefore, do your research and/or talk to a financial advisor when you have questions. Although these strategies are relatively safer than randomly investing in stocks, they may not be right for you – so do your own due diligence!

From My Experience, The Best Way To Invest $100k Is To Purchase Websites 

In 2018 I began investing in websites that earn income from ads and affiliate commissions. Being in my early 20’s and living in Southern California, where the cost of living is very high, I knew I had to make some wise investments early in order to be in the position to purchase a home eventually. Since many of my jobs during high school and college were in the mobile app development space, I was immersed in technology all of the time. As I was looking for ways to generate income online, I found that many people own websites that were making serious money! With this in mind, I did research on how to make income like this and found that I could buy an already established, income earning website without having to build one from scratch.

So on January 1st 2018, I used Empire Flippers, an online website brokerage, to purchase my first affiliate website for $49,000. Instead of having to spend the time and money to build a website from nothing, I bought one that had been established since 2014 and that was earning about $1,800 per month of passive profit. With no website programming or design experience, I began to implement simple, but effective strategies to increase profitability. Here is a video explaining exactly what I did. In four short months I had nearly doubled the monthly profit WITHOUT increasing the traffic or adding much content!

Now Get This…

Since my goal of purchasing an already established website was to learn the inner workings of these passive income generators, I decided it was time to sell since profitability was up and I had learned what I needed to. In April or May, I ended up selling the website for $75,000, a $26,000 increase! During the four months, the website earned an additional $13,000 in affiliate commissions plus received thousands of dollars worth of products to review (since it was a review website).

After doing the calculations, I earned about a 55.6% ROI in just 4 months on this website!

Even before I began considering to sell the website, I was on the hunt to purchase another one since I saw the potential in the website investment space. I purchased another website in mid-2018, in a different niche. I still own this website and see about a 26% ROI annually. My goal is long term growth, not to sell it off.

Although the stock market has been great the last year or two, I can not beat the returns that my website investments have been offering.  I have also started building websites from the ground up to add to my portfolio.

In 2018 I spent nearly $100,000 in total buying and making affiliate niche websites since the returns were fantastic.

Want To Start A Money Making Website?

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Here are some benefits of investing $100k in websites:

1. You have the attention of hundreds or thousands of people per day, think of the marketing potential in this
2. You can operate a website from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet
3. If you are connected with a programmer you do not need any programming experience yourself, I have very little
4. There is no cap to how much you can make, your earning is directly proportional to how much work you put in
5. There is a huge demand for websites, so finding a buyer for your site is easy if you ever want to sell
6. You never know, a piece of content could go viral and change your life forever

If you are interested in website investing, I suggest checking out the Empire Flippers marketplace, they sell websites from $20,000 to over $1,000,000…something for every budget. Hop on a call with one of the businesses analysts, they are a great company and I can’t recommend them enough. I know of several private equity companies that will manage a website investment for you, so if you want to be totally hands off this is an option.

Email me, zach@moneynomad.com, if you have any questions about website investing, I truly believe this is a way to building long-term wealth. I’m currently on the hunt for a SaaS business, that will be next place I invest $100k.

Now onto the list of 10 more “common” ways to invest…

Invest $100,000 in real estate

The first three ways to invest $100k involve real estate. Once you have $100,000 to invest, real estate becomes a plausible option – both for growing and protecting your wealth.

When done intelligently, real estate is almost always a safe investment – even when the market tanks. Provided you do your research and purchase insurance on the property, your downside is substantially limited.

Here are three ways to invest in real estate:

1. Buy a rental property in your home country

You can purchase a rental property in most parts of the country with $100,000. If you want something a bit pricier, cover the downpayment and find lenders to cover the rest.

Rental properties are a great investment because a profitable rental will maintain its value regardless of what happens in the market.

If the value of homes rises, then your property becomes worth more. If the value of homes drops, then people rent instead of buy – increasing the rental income of your investment. As long as you find a property with great cash flow, you can enjoy a very steady growth in your wealth.

Real Life Example

In early 2019 I purchased my first piece of real estate in San Diego, California, where I live. I chose this specific condo because of its location and rarity. The condo sits on a small cove connected to the ocean, where owners can take advantage of jet skiing, wake boarding, paddle boarding and the like. My thinking is that this area will continue to appreciate at a fast rate than surround properties with no water access.

The purchase price was $600,000 with a 2 bed/2bath, 1,200 square foot layout. I put just shy of 20% down and spent about $12,000 on renovations (such as plaster, paint, windows, etc). 

Fast forward to nearly exactly 24 months later, and based on similar comps, this condo could be sold for $800,000+. I’m still trying to decide if it’s right time to sell, and if there is another real estate spike later this year, I may do so. 

With very little work and the function of appreciation, I could very realistically net $200,000+ from a real estate sale in a short amount of time. I highly encourage others to find real estate investments of their own.

2. Invest in international real estate

A recent investment group that I came across, Real Caribe, currently offers Dominican Republic properties for sale in a luxury skyrise – for around $100,000 per unit.

With the potential of 8-12% annual returns on a completely managed investment, that’s definitely worth taking a look at!

Although purchasing properties in the US generally takes a bit less work, it’s becoming more difficult to find great bargains.

Meanwhile, other parts of the world are experiencing tremendous growth – and earning 10-15% annual returns from your property investment isn’t unreasonable. Plus, with prices often lower than in the US, your $100,000 investment will go a lot further.

Because international investing can be risky for foreigners, if you don’t know what you’re doing, only invest if you have someone local to advocate for you and validate the investment.

To protect your investment, find a credible law firm, legitimate Americans that are already working in the area, or an investment firm to work with (like those backing Real Caribe). When you have partners looking out for your investment, it’s much easier to sleep at night.

Oh, and did I mention that international real estate gives you a tax break when you travel?! That’s right, you get to write off your travel as a business expense anytime you go to review your property.

3. Invest in real estate with equity crowdfunding

If you want to invest in real estate without having to deal with the complexities of managing the property yourself, than equity crowdfunding is an excellent way to invest. With equity crowdfunding you lend money to real estate developers for a solid profit – earning anywhere from 8-15% in annual returns.

Because the loans are vetted by skilled investors and backed by the actual property, your investment is relatively safe.

Personally, as a non-accredited investor (someone earning under $200k a year), I invest in the Fundrise eREITs – which is open to all US citizens. Meanwhile, if you are an accredited investor, then you can gain access to a far wider range of investments by exploring RealtyShares, EquityMultiple, and Patch of Land.

Another great option is AHPFund, which allows you to gain a steady return (targeting 12%) by investing in mortgage notes. Not only can you make decent returns, but AHPFund is committed to helping people stay in their homes. Personally, it’s one of my favorite mission-driven businesses — and you can learn more about them in my review of AHPFund here.

By investing in crowdfunded real estate, not only do you earn healthy returns, but you have the ability to benefit the small business owners developing and managing those properties.

How I Flipped A Website and Made $40,000

In just 4 months I bought and flipped a website that earned me over $40,000! I used a website broker to buy and sell the website, and did not do any SEO work to the website. I simply optimized the revenue streams among other simple changes. Learn how you can do the same!

Watch The Video And Learn How You Can Too

Invest $100,000 in the stock market

While real estate often provides the most stable form of investing, stocks certainly shouldn’t be ignored. Although the market ebbs and flows, so far it always goes back up.

However, when the market is near it’s peak, you’re left with a dilemma – while it could certainly keep going up, it has the likely possibility of dropping by 10-20%.

How do you combat this? Here are a few ways:  

4. Work with a Certified Financial Advisor

Another option to invest your hard-earned money is to enlist the help of a qualified financial advisor. By using a financial advisor you are able to turn over some of the responsibilities and work of allocating your portfolio to a professional. This will free you up to focus on other things like what you did to earn that $100,000 in the first place.

A good financial advisor will work with you to construct a financial plan based on your station in life and your goals. From there, they will custom construct a portfolio that will best help achieve those goals and maximize returns.

Financial advisors take a lot of the emotion out of investing. Everyone knows that the first rule of investing is buy low and sell high, but that is easier said than done when you see your net worth violently fluctuating day to day. A financial advisor will be able to make objective decisions and talk you through the tough times. Emotional decisions are the reason that, according to Dalbar’s Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB) study, the average investor, when left to their own devices, achieves only a 1.9% annualized return over 30 years.

All financial advisors are not created equal. I suggest working with a Certified Financial Planner professional. CFP professionals must acquire several years of experience related to delivering financial planning services to clients and pass the comprehensive CFP Certification Exam before they can call themselves a CFP professional. More importantly, they are fiduciaries and held to a strict ethical standard.

I personally use a CFP for my investments, use the form below to set up a free 20 minute phone call with one today!

Sign Up For A Free 20 Minute Phone Call With A CFP

5. Diversify your portfolio with a robo-advisor service

The key to stable returns in the stock market is to diversify your portfolio across a variety of US stocks, international stocks, and bonds. While you can attempt to develop this diversified portfolio on your own, it will get expensive fast.

The better bet is to either buy into an ETF through a traditional stock broker like TradeKing, or use a robo-advisor that will automate your investments based on your risk level.

The most popular robo-advisor for high net worth investors is Personal Capital (if you have over $100,000 to invest). Not only does Personal Capital allow you to invest at a fraction of the cost of many other investment services, but they also provide free consulting and advising.

For those with a lower net worth, Betterment is another fantastic robo-advisor service (one I currently use) that allows you to inexpensively diversify your portfolio.

And the newest kid on the block is M1Finance, which offers many of the same perks as Betterment, with fewer fees (I’ve just started investing with this platform and love how it works).

Once you are investing $100,000 or more, you don’t want to place everything in a single stock. Sure, it could increase your wealth much faster, but it could also diminish it. Diversification is key.

6. Buy Blue Chip stocks and write covered calls

Although you want to diversify most of your portfolio, if there are a few specific companies that you want to own for the long-term, consider writing covered calls.

A covered call is like putting a renter in your investment property – whether the value of the rental goes up or down, you make money! When you write a covered call you are giving someone the option to buy your stock at a specific price by a specific date.

If the stock goes way up, then the call option will be activated and you will have to sell your shares at a discounted rate (but you still make money). Meanwhile, if the stock stays flat or decreases in value, then you don’t have to sell your shares and you make anywhere from $0.50 – 5.00+ per share for selling the option.

To learn more about selling options check out the free tutorials on Born to Sell. Meanwhile, if you want to start trading stocks and options (such as covered calls), I recommend creating an account with TradeKing – as they have the best combination of price and service from the many services I have explored.

• Bonus offer: Sign up for a no-fee stock trading account via Robinhood and receive a free share of stock — just for joining! You could end up with a share of Facebook, Microsoft, or Sprint (among other stocks).

Riskier alternative ways to invest $100k

While the five investment strategies above are probably the safest ways to invest $100,000 – they are by no mean the only options available.

Some people prefer to invest in art, precious medals, and a variety of other items. While some of these are very risky and present a high chance of loss, here are a few other areas where you can invest for a decent, and relatively stable, return.

7. Invest in loans with peer-to-peer lending

Sites like Lending Club offer anyone the opportunity to invest in P2P (peer-to-peer) loans. When someone needs to renovate their house, pay for a large purchase, or refinance their credit card debt, they turn to Lending Club.

Lending Club, in turn, gives you and I the opportunity to invest as little as $25 into these notes – earning an average annual return of around 9% after defaults (according to their site – my returns have been closer to 3% annualized).

While I don’t recommend placing all of your capital in Lending Club, it is a great alternative to traditional forms of investing that might be less risky than the stock market.

8. Invest in virtual currencies like Bitcoin

Bitcoin first made waves around the US when the currency climbed from about $1 per Bitcoin to over $1,200 per Bitcoin within 12 months in 2014. Although the price of Bitcoin has leveled out to around $500, it still fluctuates wildly and has a tendency to shoot up when the economy or political landscape looks grim.

Because the currency isn’t tied to any government, its value doesn’t drop when a specific nation comes across hard times.

Probably the riskiest investment on this list, and not one where you want to place $100,000, if you want to bet against the US economy, buying Bitcoin isn’t a bad idea.

To buy Bitcoin and find businesses that accept it (more and more every day) jump over to Coinbase, the leading Bitcoin exchange. Receive $10 of free Bitcoin with your first exchange of $100 or more.. 

9. Invest in businesses via equity crowdfunding

It’s now legal for anyone to invest in small startups in exchange for equity. Find the next Facebook or Google and your small investment could become worth 10x what you place into it.

Of course, with the opportunity of great reward comes great risk. Business equity crowdfunding can mean that you buy into a business that never takes off – making your investment essentially worthless.

Although not the best way to invest $100,000, if you diversify across 100 unique businesses, it may turn out to be profitable.

The current leader in the equity crowdfunding world is WeFunder. I’ve invested in several companies through WeFunder, and love it! They currently provide a $10 waiver on your first investment.

10. Invest in your own business

Mark Cuban says that the best investment is the one you make in your own business. His thoughts are that placing your money in stocks/etc means that your money is going to grow someone else’s business instead of your own.

Because you probably don’t want to invest $100,000 into a business unless it’s doing very well, there are a variety of ways to start a business inexpensively.

You can start a blog for $2/month and potentially turn it into a $1 million per year income stream. Meanwhile you can start your own online store using a site like Shopify.

Although I don’t recommend placing all of your wealth in a startup, if you have the time to spare, starting your own business can become very profitable.

How would you invest $100,000?

Whether you are a financial guru, college investor, or investing newbie, I would love to hear your thoughts on where and how to invest your money.

Where did (or will) you put your first $100,000?