Two financial terms that are often times confused with one another are residual income investments and passive income investments. The different between these two terms is fairly easy to explain. First passive income is generated without any effort, or very little effort, from the investor. On the other hand, residual income is generated from the efforts initially invested by the investor.
Real estate investing can produce both residual income and passive income. If you want to make residual income investments in real estate then you can buy a property and then sell it with owner financing. This means that instead of making the buyer get financing through a bank you will agree to carry the contract and they will then submit to you monthly principal and interest payments. These payments are considered residual income. On the other hand, if you want to generate passive income from real estate investments then you can invest in trust deeds. Trust deeds are basically private mortgage loans. This investment activity is passive because you don’t have to actively participate in the management of the account to make money.
If you are interested in a business opportunity to make residual income then you can look at entering into a sales company that offers residual income on the sales made by the people that you sign up under you. For example many door-to-door sales companies pay their sales team a commission on what they make as well as a smaller commission on the amount of sales generated by all of the people who were signed up by the salesperson. Passive income can also be generated from business opportunities. However, for tax purposes the passive income cannot be derived from the active participation in a business, nor can it be derived from interest, capital gains, or dividends.