Investors frequently hear warnings of the perils of not diversifying their portfolios between stocks and bonds.

While certainly two major asset classes you should consider when learning how to start investing money, other investment opportunities exist beyond traditional exchange-listed securities.

In fact, a truly diversified investment portfolio should also include “alternative investments.” By definition, these represent financial assets which do not fall into either of these conventional asset classes.

For example, alternative investments include tangible assets like art, wine, gold, oil, real estate (like condos, single-family homes, commercial real estate, etc.), venture capital, royalties, tax liens, and much more.

In their truest sense, alternative investments represent a further diversification in your portfolio and often act as a buffer against volatility seen in the actively-traded securities like stocks and bonds.

When it comes to choosing which alternative investment options make sense for your portfolio, you should consider:

• their liquidity (i.e., how quickly and cheaply these assets can convert to cash if you need to sell),
• how they fit into your budget,
• investing time horizon (and patience level), and
• passions.

After discussing several examples of alternative investments you should consider, we examine the primary pros and cons of investing in alternative assets in this Alternative Investments 101 guide.

Best Alternative Investment Options

1. Invest in Crowdsourced Real Estate

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“Buy land, they’re not making anymore.” -Mark Twain

Commercial real estate creates a steady income from rent and the property values typically appreciate in value over time.

Getting started will likely take some financing and you’ll need to convince your lender you know what you’re doing when it comes to assessing net operating income potential, screening tenants, maintaining properties and handling all of the finer legal details of buying and selling real estate.

The first step is to get financing and buy or build a commercial real estate property. The options have been carefully picked for the best chance of increasing your net worth.

In the next step, the investor leases space in the property to people who pay rent. Once covering the expenses, the rest of the rental income acts as profit.

In the final step, the investor can choose to sell the property. The resulting proceeds, less your costs, represents your overall profit in the venture.

However, you’ll also need to factor in your time, the stress from handling commercial real estate negotiations, meeting tenant obligations and practically living on call if an event transpires.

Instead of handling all this headache yourself, you can outsource all of this to crowdsourced real estate investment platforms. Let them worry about the details and you just provide the capital to invest and earn money as a passive income investment.

The initial investment minimum on a platform like FundRise is only $10 and the main requirements are just to be a U.S. resident aged 18 or older.

FundRise charges 0.15% in annual advisory fees for managing your account, but you can have these fees waived when you refer friends who join.

There is also a 0.85% charge in annual management fees for managing the real estate funds, the eFunds and eREITs that make up a portfolio. Some projects may have development or liquidation fees.

In some cases, the passive income tax rates make these investments advantageous compared to other investment income.

Though, of note, like with any commercial real estate investing endeavor, these act as highly illiquid investments. Therefore, only invest if you want to consider a longer-term investment.

For many, the benefits of low fees and a low minimum investment make up for the illiquidity.

While no investment comes 100% safe, real estate is considered one of the safer investment options for diversifying one’s portfolio.

FundRise boasts 8.7% – 12.4% historic annual returns. The passive income from real estate investing can be a good source of supplemental income to consider.

Both represent good opportunities worth exploring if you’ve got interest in commercial real estate investing. Consider signing up and opening an account with each to learn more.

Related: 10 Best Fundrise Alternatives [Accredited & Non-Accredited Apps]

2. Invest in Farmland

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There are other types of real estate you can invest in outside of residential and commercial properties, such as farmland.

Historically, farmland investing has only been available to the ultra-wealthy. However, with the introduction of crowdfunding platforms like FarmTogether, this high-barrier to entry has been significantly reduced, and the asset is widely accessible to investors of all kinds for the first time.

As one of the best passive income investments, farmland typically offers a steady, reliable return on investment, low correlation to traditional assets like stocks and bonds, and a hedge to inflation.

Over the past several decades, farmland has consistently yielded returns over 10%; after all, the primary use for the land is food, and people will always need to eat.

This also makes farmland real estate particularly well-suited to appreciate over time. In fact, over the past ten years, American farmland has risen in value by more than 6% each year.

 

3. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

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A REIT is a real estate investment trust, which is technical jargon for a type of real estate investment company that owns and manages real estate on behalf of a group of investors looking to earn passive income.

They’d rather hire a team to do the work and collect their regular distributions from real estate investment trusts.

One advantage to REITs is their legal structure. If REITs pass along most of their rental income earned from properties they own to investors, they pay no corporate tax. Only shareholders pay tax in that circumstance.

Opportunity: Investors can purchase REITs on the stock market just like they would any other company or equity. If you’re looking for a solid income investment, dividend-paying REITs could be your way to go.

The best REITs offer a dividend that increases regularly and can act as a source of passive income in the future.

Like holding dividend stocks, owning individual REITs can be more risky than a variety of REIT stocks in an index fund. Funds provide a number of great benefits, such as immediate diversification and safety.

You might also consider non market-listed REITs from private companies like Streitwise. This company has outpaced public REITs in terms of distributions and has a stellar track record of dividend payments.

Streitwise is a new era of real estate investing. With capital raised by qualified investors, the company leverages the best-performing property investments into professionally designed portfolios.

The returns then get distributed and serviced through an online REIT- with your income as their mission.

If you’re looking to generate passive income while conserving cash on hand, Streitwise provides the perfect opportunity for both accredited and non-accredited investors and offers one of the lowest fee structures around.

The company has provided an 8.4% annualized return due to its superior property selection and low fee structure, far outpacing comparable Public REITs or bonds.

Qualified investments include properties stretching largely across America from the Midwest to the West Coast and leveraged based on Streitwise’s analysis.

By placing $5 million of their own money in these investments Streitwise places a good deal of skin-in-the game for all sponsors and 100% incentive alignment between sponsor and investor interests at all times.

The service has a minimum investment of $5,000 to begin investing in commercial real estate properties. The company provides REIT offerings federally-registered with the SEC and offers them to both accredited and non-accredited investors.

Investing through an investment vehicle like Streitwise’s REIT offers a great source of passive income, recurring cash flow, higher returns, portfolio diversification and inflation protection.

With an 8.4% annualized return and a low fee structure, Streitwise provides one of the best opportunities for passive income in real estate investing.

It outpaces comparable REITs and has delivered an annualized dividend return of at least 8% for the last 17 quarters, with an average annual rate of 9.44%.

Despite Covid’s effect on the general real estate market, Streitwise met return targets through employing strong credit tenancy (100% contractual rent obligations met in 2020), conservative underwriting (51% loan to value, LTV), and a low / transparent fee structure.

Risk: Investing in REITs is a good low-effort long-term passive income strategy. That said, you will need to spend time analyzing the various companies they invest in, but they can be well worth it for the long term if chosen wisely.

While it is a mostly passive activity, you can lose a lot of money if you don’t know how to invest in REITs properly or don’t know what you’re doing. Much like stocks, prices of REITs can fluctuate in the short-term, causing volatility for your portfolio.

Dividends from REITs are not protected by tough economic times. Performance like Streitwise’s during the recession isn’t typical.

If a REIT does not generate enough income to cover its management expenses, much like a company unable to cover costs, it might have to cut or eliminate their dividends, sending the REIT downward.

In other words, this passive income idea might turn into a passive income nightmare.

However, if you feel REIT investing is a worthwhile endeavor and you’d like to explore private REITs through Streitwise or publicly-traded REITs through a stock trading app like M1 Finance, you’d be in good company.

To build your passive income stream from REITs, keep reinvesting your dividends automatically to build up your position down the road when you need the income.

 

4. Invest in “Blue-Chip” Art

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“Blue-chip” refers to well-established art and artists with high aesthetic quality. Long-term, fine art has shown to be a reliable and lucrative investment. However, multi-million dollar artwork is typically only an investment available to the extremely wealthy.

Times change, however.  Now, the art investment company Masterworks has made blue-chip art investments possible for more people than ever by allowing people to open an account with an account minimum as low as $1,000 to purchase fractional interests in expensive pieces of art.

Therefore, this makes world famous art affordable to invest in for your portfolio.

If approved after the application process, you can buy partial shares of ownership of artwork created by famous artists such as Andy Warhol, Claude Monet, Banksy, and more.

The Masterworks team has over 75 years of collective experience as dealers, collectors, or working for auction houses.

They look at a database of over a million auction records and choose artists based on risk profiles and appreciation. Even then, there are significant financial risks.

Once they have purchased a painting, they file an offering circular with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which gives you certain rights under securities laws in the United States.

Masterworks actively tries to sell paintings at a gain for their investors. They also seek ways to provide liquidity for investors, such as by sometimes making it possible to sell your shares to other investors.

Fees charged include a 1.5% annual management fee as well as 20% of the profit if the painting increases in value. Investing in art shares might not act as a good fit for anyone who does not feel comfortable with an illiquid investment.

Because it can take years for the asset to appreciate and sell for a gain, the money might take years to see a significant return, if any. This investment is best fit for people passionate about art who do not expect speedy returns.

Related: Best Investments for Roth IRAs [Target High-Growth]

5. Invest in Small Businesses

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Imagine, if you will, a small town in the heart of America. The streets are lined with quaint shops and diners that offer home-cooked meals to locals and visitors alike.

When you walk down this main street, you can feel the sense of community that fills the air. People stop by each other’s businesses to chat about their day or lend a helping hand when needed; it feels like everyone is family here. And that’s because they are, whether you realize it or not.

It’s not just one small company who provides jobs for this town; rather every store owner has created their own niche business which brings joy and financial stability to those around them too. Wouldn’t you want to support such a community and see if flourish?

Well, now you can through a small business crowdfunding service called MainVest.

MainVest curates vetted small business opportunities in your local community or nationwide for you to invest, track and build a portfolio in passive income investments.

These business ventures offer returns between 10-25% per year through revenue-sharing notes, which act as financial agreements to share revenue with investors until reaching a certain return. These payments happen in lieu of interest on a traditional loan.

Mainvest holds a responsibility for protecting investors from businesses which don’t have a strong direction or investment rationale for retail investors. As such, the service only accepts 5% of businesses who sign up for the platform to raise capital to grow their businesses.

The platform vets these businesses to allow you to make informed investment decisions based on your own interests and investing strategy.

You can invest based on location, industry and risk appetite by comparing terms and qualitative data for the 300+ investment opportunities that have launched on the small business investing platform since its founding.

Consider tapping into a new kind of investment with as little as $100 on Mainvest. Start small and see how the alternative asset class performs before making it a significant part of your portfolio.

Related: 15 Best Debit Cards for Kids and Teens to Become Money Savvy

6. Invest in Fine Wine

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Buying expensive wines may be one of your favorite activities, but did you know it could make you money?

As a tangible asset, wine has a low correlation with global equities and has less long-term market volatility than other investments.

Because wine comes from specific regions in finite quantities, the supply does not fluctuate much.

As people consume the wine, the supply diminishes and the demand increases. Simple Economics 101.  As a result, this makes it an excellent alternative investment option.

Plus, as a worst-case scenario, you can drink your wine! This may sound tempting to buy your own wine, store it in your basement, and hope for the best.

However, if you really want to make a profit, there are benefits to using a company to build your wine investment portfolio, such as Vinovest.

Fine wine dramatically outperformed several asset classes during the Great Recession and likely will during the COVID-19 bear market cycle.

The minimum balance for Vinovest is $1,000 and you pay a 2.85% annual fee to cover labor, storage, authenticity guarantee, portfolio rebalancing, and insurance.

You can lower your annual fee to 2.5%, as well as get one-on-one expert guidance and extra rare wines, if your minimum balance is $50,000 or greater.

Consider the long-term potential growth in value of this investment and look more into the investment potential.

You might find the lack of volatility and consistent returns as reasons for why fine wine investing might be one of the best investments for young adults.

To learn more about one of the companies democratizing wine investing, consider visiting the company’s site and reading our Vinovest review.

 

7. Mineral Rights and Royalties

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In the United States, land often comes paired with the right to any minerals produced on the property or beneath it.  People commonly refer to these natural resource claims as “mineral rights.”

In an instance where an exploration and production company wishes to drill in your area and it could potentially result in oil and gas production, you have a right to that bonus and income.

The drilling company, or another investor, would have ownership of the working interest in the well.

In my first job, I worked to secure mineral rights from landowners who lived above oil and gas fields across the country.

The company identified hot spots across the country and approached landowners who wished to sell their future stream of income payments for a discounted lump sum.

My firm had patient capital from investors who wished to park their money in these properties for the long-term.

Initially, my focus centered on income-producing assets, or properties already generating income from oil and gas wells.

However, with time, my firm decided to begin diversifying into proven but non-producing properties to provide potential upside to the portfolio in the long-term.

And upside did that decision provide.  The firm’s portfolio quadrupled in value in only 18 months by adding these properties which did not produce any resources at the time of purchase.

Risk surely came along with this upside because no guarantees existed the oil and gas would come out at economic levels.

Many companies exist looking to purchase mineral rights for any kind of natural resource found on land.

You might have the opportunity to use your networking tips to buy into one of these firms or invest in a pool of capital if you trust the company to operate prudently.

Research the companies’ leadership philosophies, their investment objectives, and how their performance has fared in the past before proceeding with investing.

8. Life Insurance Settlements

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Life insurance settlements, commonly referred to as “life settlements,” comes as a rarer type of alternative investment.

Understandably, this requires a stronger stomach not only to discuss, but to consider choosing as an alternative investment.

Why? Because you want to purchase life insurance policies of people who will die soon at a discounted amount.

More specifically, the mechanics work like this: life settlements involve someone selling their life insurance policy to you for a discount about the face value.

Typically, the investor pays more than the cash surrender value (if whole life) but less than the death benefit value of the policy (whether whole life, term life insurance or another type of life insurance).

After life settlement transaction occurs, the investor continues to pay premiums on the policy and then collects the benefit after the insured’s death.

For historical context, these investments carry inherent risk from the insured person living beyond life expectations.

These products gained notoriety during the 1980s and 1990s when the HIV/AIDS epidemic took the lives of many in the gay community across the United States.

However, with recent advances in medical science, these life settlements have not performed as well as expected.

Despite this risk, funds exist that manage investments in life insurance settlements. In many cases, the appeal of this investment comes from three primary advantages:

• Strong historical returns
• Low risk compared to the relatively high potential for gains
• Non-correlated with the stock market

Pros of Alternative Investments

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As mentioned briefly above, alternative investments carry a number of positive elements for why you should consider making them part of your overall strategy on how to build wealth.

Read below to see the primary reasons for including alternative investments in your portfolio and also keep in mind the various details related to each alternative investment differ.  Therefore, not all of these elements will apply in each situation.

→ Diversification

First and foremost, holding a diverse selection of assets decreases the likelihood of taking on asset-specific risk.

Holding multiple types of assets reduces the possibility of exposing yourself to the risk of one investment adversely impacting your overall portfolio return.

Many investors turn to alternatives as a way to create a more diverse portfolio rather than having everything wrapped up in stocks, bonds, and cash.

→ Higher Potential Expected Returns

Given the long-term nature of many alternative investments, their illiquidity offers a premium investors expect in exchange for losing immediate access to their funds.

For the disciplined, long-term oriented investors, some alternative investments appear attractive simply because they offer higher expected returns which might not come from other investing strategies.

→ Not Correlated with the Stock or Bond Markets

Depending on the alternative investments considered, some do not have significant (if any) correlation with the stock or bond markets (at least directly).

In other words, changes in the stock market should not directly affect the value of your alternative investment.

Translation: alternatives can act as a valuable portfolio diversifier due to their potential for insulating your portfolio from day-to-day volatility during rough market conditions.

→ Tax Benefits

Alternatives vary with investment objective and return potential.  Some provide income streams while others offer capital appreciation opportunities.

Depending on the alternative considered, they may act as tax-advantaged investments worth examining in your evaluation.

If you have uncertainty about their tax consequences, please consult a tax professional for advice related to your personal situation and the specific investments under consideration.

Cons of Alternative Investments

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Now that we have examined the main reasons for why you would consider investing in alternatives, let’s also take a moment to address some of their drawbacks.

→ Risk of Loss

Every investment carries some level of associated risk.  Alternative investments act no differently. Therefore, while the level of risk will vary from one investment to another, in general, alternative investments still carry risk.

Depending on the type of alternative asset, they may range in risk from conservative to aggressive.  One other item to consider during your analysis are regulations or the lack thereof.

While traditional investments like investing in index funds, stocks and bonds have deep markets and tightly-controlled rules and regulations (even something as risky as shorting stocks on Robinhood and Webull comes with strict rules and regulations), not all alternative investments come with such certainty.

As a result, rules and regulations will vary by investment and should factor into your risk evaluation.  Investing in alternatives carries the risk of partial or complete loss in some instances.

→ Unfamiliar Assets and Risks

A major reason why alternative investments can carry more risk than more traditional investments stems from the fact that they tend to be less familiar to most investors.

As a general rule, you should avoid investing in anything you do not fully comprehend (e.g., credit default swaps).

Therefore, take time to conduct your own research into the asset before moving forward with an alternative investment.

If you choose to invest without sufficient due diligence, you could potentially expose yourself to an undue amount of risk.

→ Tax Disadvantages / Complexity

Just as some alternative investments create potential for tax-advantaged investments, the same applies to the other side of the coin.

Some alternatives offer tax disadvantages compared to other options available to you.

As a result, you should consider speaking with a tax professional if you do not have certainty about the tax consequences of investing in an alternative investment.

→ Some Alternative Investments Require a High Minimum Investment

As with all investments, certain minimums could apply.  Mutual funds, target date funds, and other common types of investment vehicles often present hurdles in the form of minimum initial contributions before gaining access to investing in their funds.

While index funds on Robinhood or the best Robinhood alternatives do not require minimum investments (beyond affording the price of purchasing one share), alternatives present different rules in some cases.

Some platforms present minimum investment thresholds before allowing you to invest in their asset, platform or service.  Despite these hurdles, some of the alternatives addressed later in this article do not require a lot of money to start investing.

Options exist for everyone, but the more money you have, the more likely you are to have access to invest in more assets.

→ Some Alternative Investments Options are for High Net Worth Individuals Only

Some investments only allow access to accredited investors, or those meeting certain net worth or annual income thresholds.  Therefore, some alternative investments are only open to high net worth individuals.

In broad strokes, two types of investors exist in the eyes of the U.S. regulators: accredited and non-accredited.  From purely a numbers perspective, accredited investors have more investment options than non-accredited investors, all things being equal.

As a specific call out: a handful of these services mentioned below only allow access to accredited investors (or those people who meet one or both of the following criteria):

• Earned income in excess of $200,000 (or $300,000 if married) for each of the last two years with reasonable expectations for that amount this year, OR
• Have over $1,000,000 in net worth (with or without a spouse), excluding the equity in a primary residence

Again, the details of each investment will vary, but several investments covered in this article tend to only have access available to accredited investors. Therefore, this means only a small percentage of people will have access to pursue those investments.

→ Illiquid

Famed quantitative-focused investor Cliff Asness speaks highly of “liquid alts,” or those alternative investments readily convertible to cash within a reasonable period of time.

In Asness’ view, a well-constructed portfolio which includes liquid alts can help investors diversify their portfolios and — eventually — reap long-term gains.

He argues for this strategy to work effectively, the alternative investments should have low correlation to traditional assets, such as stocks and bonds, which trade at expensive levels compared to historical valuations.

As a result, if you can find diversifying, positive expected return “liquid alts,” then you can materially improve your portfolio.  Therefore, let’s take a look at some alternative investments which might diversify your portfolio.

How Much Should You Invest in Alternatives?

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After reviewing some major details about alternative investments and reviewed some alternative options, you might still wonder, “How much should I invest in alternatives?” As with all things investing-related, the answer will depend on several different variables.

Alternative investments help to protect you against a market crash, have high potential returns, and many tend to have less volatility than some traditional investments.

Today, many investment opportunities that used to be reserved only for the very wealthy are available to people with more moderate amounts of money to invest.

If you want to diversify your portfolio and are considering alternative investments, decide carefully what the best option(s) for you are. You may choose to try out a few investments for even more diversification. Just make sure never to invest more than you can afford.

Financial advice varies, but a common amount to consider for your overall portfolio is around 10%.

Finally, you should also remember that “alternative investments” comprises a very broad term. Many of these investments have little to no correlation with each other or with other traditional investments.

Following Asness’ advice, you want liquid alts which can provide positive, non-market correlated returns. Whichever allocation you feel accomplishes this amount for you successfully would be your suggested allocation to alternative investments.