Investing in real estate is so high on everyone’s financial priorities’ list because it works. It’s a surefire way of generating extra income and building wealth, but it’s hard to do it without a consistent amount of starting funds. Still, if you start smart and use the right avenues, it’s not impossible. Here’s how to invest in real estate with no money or very little money and start a portfolio you can then build upon. 

Traditional Real Estate Investing versus Next-Generation Investments

First, let’s explore what the traditional landscape of real estate investing looks like and how this is changing in the new age of next-gen investments. Real estate is a business sector almost as old as time, since modern humans have always needed a place to live in. Being around for a long time, it’s inevitable that this business niche has gone through significant changes and transformations. 

For the purpose of this guide, we’ll only focus on the changes that took place in the past few decades, just so you can have a better idea of how they can impact your current investing journey. 

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How to Invest in Real Estate with No Money

Investing without money may sound unbelievable to a seasoned investor coming from a more traditional investing landscape, but you definitely can invest in real estate with little money or even with no money of your own. 

For clarification, it’s true that investing in real estate is not very feasible without any money at all, but there are ways of ensuring that you are either investing with negligible amounts (almost no money) or you are leveraging deals and opportunities that allow you to invest in real estate without using your own money for it.

Finally, there are a few opportunities out there for investing in real estate with absolutely no money or your own, or borrowed. For example, the friend referral program that we have at MetaWealth™ allows you to earn $20 as in-app credits for any friend you refer to the app who ends up investing in fractionalized real estate. Technically, if you refer enough friends (5 or more), you could gain enough in-app credits to buy your own piece of real estate for $100 and start earning rental income on it, even if you didn’t bring any money of your own into it. 

Types of Available Real Estate Investments with No Money or Little Money

Here are the best ways of investing in real estate with little to no money, and that can be applied anywhere in the world. 

#1. Fractions of real estate

The best way to go is, obviously, investing in fractions real estate, as that eliminates the need to have a large sum of money to start. 

The MetaWealth™ app is the best way to invest in fractional real estate that provides you with a passive income from the rents it generates  of 5-7% and an asset appreciation rate of 6-8% per year, leading to a compounded return on your investment of 60-80% in just 5 years. The starting investment is $100, but if you can’t afford it there are ways around it if you prefer to get involved with the friend referral program we were discussing above. 

Even if you can’t afford to start off your investment journey in real estate with your own money, if you are a social enough person you can easily make the money just by bringing more friends to the investing experience. After you invest your first fraction of real estate, it’s just going to get easier and easier!

#2. Restoring an older but unusable property belonging to your family or a neighbor

Another tried and true way to invest in real estate with no money or very little money is to flip properties. Even if you don’t own a real estate property yourself, perhaps someone in your family or even a neighbor that you get along with well does. Ideally, this property should be in a state of disrepair so bad that no one is using it anymore. This could potentially be a gold mine for you.

Simply discuss the following arrangement with the owner of the property which has fallen into squalor: you put in the elbow grease to clean it up, do some repairs and give it a fresh coat of paint where necessary, and after the property is rentable you get a share of the rental income for the following year or two, depending on the effort that you had to put in. 

This is a great way to start earning from real estate with no money or little money, with just your time and effort as initial investments. After you accumulate enough capital (provided that you put aside into your real estate investment fund everything you earn), you will be able to afford different types of investing in real estate. 

#3. Real estate stocks or REITs

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are a classic way of investing in real estate with less money than the sums required for buying an entire property. Some investors who don’t want to commit a lot of money towards one big investment prefer to work with REITs instead. 

REITs can provide a good alternative to traditional, direct real estate investments, but we created MetaWealth™ has been designed to take that much further, making fractional real estate investments more accessible, transparent and representative... 

You can read more about investing with MetaWealth™ vs investing via REITs HERE and see why the MetaWealth™ platform is the much better option. 

#4. Investing in real estate with other people’s money (Real estate crowdfunding)

The last option can be somewhat risky and uncomfortable for some people, but a good way to proceed for the right kind of person with a more salesy attitude. 

If you’re confident about the real estate investment opportunity at hand, you’ve done your fair research of the market but all you’re missing are the funds, you could try borrowing money from friends and family and investing this way. 

You will pay back what you owe them with an interest rate at the end of the investment period, or distribute to them periodic earnings according to the contribution of each, retaining a portion of the profit for yourself.. If all goes well, this should allow you to put aside some capital for future investments in real estate made with your own money. 

Building Up Your Real Estate Investment Portfolio with No Money

In real estate investing, as in all types of investments, the basic principles are that time and diversification should be the main two pillars of a healthy and successful approach. As long as you invest in a solid, diversified portfolio and give it time to grow, your efforts will become more and more fruitful, like a positive snowball effect, which in investing is called the compound interest effect. Even if you start out with small amounts of money and just reinvest the earnings.

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Almost no one thinks seriously about investing when they’re in their 20s, and that is the most common financial mistake. The earlier you start, the better for your cumulative returns. Still, it’s never too late to start investing and building a nest egg, so better late than never. 

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There are also several solid real estate investing principles that apply for both large and small investments, so always keep these in mind even if you are starting small. You need to think like big league real estate investors even if you’re not exactly there yet. 

Here are these basic principles that you should always keep in mind when evaluating real estate investing opportunities:

#1. Do your due diligence

#2. Buy at a discount when the property is new

#3. Buy an older property and fix it up

#4. Add value to the initial investment

#5. Invest for the long term

#6. Keep a small cash buffer for property management emergencies

#7. Look mostly for yield rather than capital appreciation

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Besides these basic principles, we have to say that the MetaWealth app that we've built is the absolute best way of investing in real estate with very little money (starting with just $100), or even for larger investments when you don't want to handle the asset vetting, wait time and paperwork all on your own.

Key Take-Aways on Investing in Real Estate with Little Money

Even investors who come from a more traditional investing era will agree to this golden tenant of investing wisdom: investing a lot of money is less important than investing steadily and starting early. So don’t worry if you don’t have enough money to feel comfortable about investing in real estate or if you feel that your small amounts invested won’t make a difference in your life right now.

What matters is that month after month and year after year, your investment grows and builds up, up to a point where you will be very grateful to yourself for starting the journey. 

Keep investing in projects with a low risk profile (such as most real estate investing projects) and build passive income streams that you can reinvest. You’d be surprised by how far you can go even if you started real estate investing with little or no money. 

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