Different Types of Real Estate Investment
Real estate is one of the oldest and most popular asset classes. Most new investors in real estate know that, but what they don't know is how many different types of real estate investments exist.

It goes without saying that each type of real estate investment has its own potential benefits and pitfalls, including unique quirks in cash flow cycles, lending traditions, and standards of what is considered appropriate or normal, so you'll want to study them well before you start adding them to your portfolio.As you uncover these different types of real estate investments and learn more about them, it isn't unusual to see someone build a fortune by learning to specialize in a particular niche.

If you decide this is an area in which you might want to devote significant time, effort, and resources to in your own quest for financial independence and passive income, I'd like to walk you through some of the different kinds of real estate investing so you can get a general lay of the land.
If you're intent on developing, acquiring, or owning, or flipping real estate, you can better come to an understanding of the peculiarities of what you're facing by dividing real estate into several categories.

Residential real estate investments are properties such as houses, apartment buildings, townhouses, and vacation houses where a person or family pays you to live in the property. The length of their stay is based upon the rental agreement, or the agreement they sign with you, known as the lease agreement.

Commercial real estate investments consist mostly of things like office buildings and skyscrapers. If you were to take some of your savings and construct a small building with individual offices, you could lease them out to companies and small business owners, who would pay you rent to use the property. It isn't unusual for commercial real estate to involve multi-year leases. This can lead to greater stability in cash flow, and even protect the owner when rental rates decline, but if the market heats up and rental rates increase substantially over a short period of time, it may not be possible to participate as the office building is locked into the old agreements.

Industrial real estate investments can consist of everything from industrial warehouses leased to firms as distribution centers over long-term agreements to storage units, car washes and other special purposes real estate that generates sales from customers who temporarily use the facility. Industrial real estate investments often have significant fee and service revenue streams, such as adding coin-operated vacuum cleaners at a car wash, to increase the return on investment for the owner.

Retail real estate investments consist of shopping malls, strip malls, and other retail storefronts. In some cases, the landlord also receives a percentage of sales generated by the tenant store in addition to a base rent to incentivize them to keep the property in top-notch condition.
By joshua kennon
courtesy:the balance(Investor's guide blog).