If you’ve retired or started seriously planning for retirement, you may think it’s too late to do any worthwhile investing. After all, passive investing can take years, even decades, to really pay off. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty to gain.

Your real estate investment strategy impacts which markets you should target. Where buy-and-hold investing is concerned, your market choice is paramount.

If we're honest, investing in anything can come with its fair share of anxieties. We all want to find success in our financial endeavors, particularly when they take so much of our time and resources. For many of us, our idea of investing in real estate comes from glamorized HGTV productions about property flipping—a type of investing that demands not only agility in the right neighborhoods and markets, but key timing.

We all know that investing in real estate is a great way to generate passive income and build a long-term investment portfolio for building wealth and retirement. In fact, we're experts in this particular strategy! But what about other strategies and tactics to earn even more passive income throughout your life?

When we think about the principles of finance, money management, and investing, I think most of us, on a basic level, understand that owning real estate is a good thing. It’s ingrained in us that we should own a home. The American Dream has lauded it for centuries.

For any buy-and-hold real estate investor, passive income is the most important factor in any investment. Sure, appreciation is nice, but it’s the bonus: the cherry on top. Cash flow is what actually makes the investment worthwhile.

When it comes to earning passive income through real estate investment, there’s little more crucial than protecting the investments that you worked so hard to acquire.

For real estate investors, your streams of cash flow keep your business going. They are what enable you to create the financial future of your dreams: whether that entails funding an investment empire, building the retirement of a lifetime, or simply having everything you need so that money never has to be a worry for you or your children.

Passive income is the magic word for most people, especially when it comes to their investments. They want to find that special opportunity that requires little expertise and time and not a lot of stress and strain, but something that will bring in a steady and reliable check. They want that something that they can count on to help build up their retirement or finance another dream!

There’s a popular saying among real estate investors. Cash flow is king. Cash flow, in a general sense, can be defined as the money being transferred into and out of a business. In the context of investments, there are two types of cash flow: positive and negative. Real estate investors are on a mission to maximize their positive cash flow (their passive income).

We’ve all heard people say “a home is an investment.” When they say this, they’re usually referring to hopes of appreciation that, years down the line, may pay off when they retire or downsize.