Top 10 Online Businesses You Should Start if Your Rent Increased This Year

Adella Pasos
10 min readMay 8, 2022

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Rent has risen dramatically for many renters, particularly in major cities like New York and Florida. According to a study by Yardi Matrix, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New York City was $3,221 in February 2019, up 4.4% from the same month a year earlier. In Los Angeles, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $2,805, up 3.7% from a year earlier. As of 2022, Florida’s rent has increased 5.39% in the entire state.

This rent increase has caused many people to move out of their apartment communities to live with friends and family members. It’s also rendering many people homeless. Rent increases have affected many renters, especially those on fixed incomes, and those whose housing is more affordable.

A renter cannot simply show up to sign a lease and then expect the landlord to give them the keys. Most apartment communities are expecting at least one full month of rent as a security deposit, and that you make two to three times the rent in monthly gross income.

So, your rent has increased, now what can you do?

Many people find themselves looking into getting a second job, starting a business or a side hustle. Starting an online business or working a side hustle can bring in extra income to cover the rent and help you towards your goals.

Entrepreneurs are happier, healthier, and wealthier than the average American. A growing number of Americans are starting their own businesses every year and the benefits gained from being an entrepreneur are huge. Over 1.3 million new businesses are created each month, and over 40 million businesses have already been established. These businesses employ around 60 million Americans and they create 5.5 million new jobs.

Top 10 Business Ideas You Can Start to Help Cover the Rent

1. Start a blog.

A blog is a great way to share your experiences or expertise with a certain community and make money doing it. This can be done on a full-time or part-time basis and done from home. Most bloggers make up to $75,000 annually, according to PayScale. However, bloggers who do make money tend to earn a lot less than bloggers who write on subjects that don’t make money. Bloggers who make money do so by selecting a specific niche, writing reviews or how to blog posts on a topic and then they make money through advertising and affiliate marketing. Some bloggers even sell their own products directly to readers like items they sell on Amazon, Etsy or eBay.

Choosing a niche for your blog may seem complicated, but it really isn’t. There are plenty of ideas out there to help you figure out what kind of niche you want for your blog. First, think about what you want to write about. Are you hoping to help people, give them advice or information for a problem they have? Are you hoping to entertain them? Are you hoping to educate them? Once you figure out the kind of content you want to offer, you can figure out what kind of niche you want. The top niches that bring in the most money are in health, wealth and relationships. My favorite website hosting for starting a blog is Bluehost. The first step is to choose a name for your blog, buy the website hosting, setup wordpress, design the layout of your site and start writing.

2. Start an e-commerce store.

E-commerce stores are businesses that make and sell products or services via the internet to consumers. E-commerce stores are successful because they reach consumers all around the world. Although many consumers buy goods and services from businesses in their local area, many buyers purchase from businesses in another country. E-commerce stores sell goods to consumers all over the world and shops are essentially open 24/7. You can quickly start an online store with Shopify, Etsy or Amazon.

An e-commerce store is a great option if you’re looking to start your own business online and generate money on the side. The industries that The industries that generate the most money in e-commerce are Fashion and Apparel, Beauty and Personal Care, Household Goods and Electronics.

Digital products are becoming more and more popular and many things that used to be physical, such as books, are now becoming digital. They are called digital products because once you purchase them, they are available anywhere you have internet access, rather than in a bookcase. Some examples of digital products include audio files, templates, scripts, eBooks, courses, digital art, pdf guides, software, images, wallpaper, printable journals, worksheets, etc. All of these items can be sold in your e-commerce store and delivered digitally, which means more profit for the business and more money for you.

3. Start an online consulting business.

Consulting is a lucrative business. Consulting involves helping people make decisions about their business or life. Consulting professionals are often hired to solve problems. Their advice is sought by companies, organizations, and individuals. As a consultant, you may offer suggestions about a company’s products or services, or offer advice on how to handle certain situations.

Many consultants work for themselves and from the comfort of their home. If you have knowledge and expertise on a certain area of life or business, you can package it and sell it as a consulting service. As a consultant, you should charge anywhere from $50 to $200 per hour, depending on the market rate and your experience. If you would like, you can also charge per day, for travel time or even for email support if needed.

4. Create online courses.

When creating a course, you need to consider how much your time is worth. You also have to consider how much money you can make by selling your course. A course can be anything, you can teach people how to cook, how to speak, how to travel for less or even something technical like web development. Creating a course can be done in your spare time and digitally delivered.

It can be challenging and frustrating to create your first course. However, taking the first step to create your course is important. Do your research on niche and decide on where you can help. Price your course reasonably and go to market. The average part-time course creator is making anywhere from an extra $500 per month to upwards of $20K a month. There are a variety of platforms to host your course, like Thinkific and Udemy. I personally like Payhip. The video hosting is affordable and they have nice looking registration pages that are easy to setup for beginners.

5. Start an online subscription service.

Selling a monthly subscription to recurring revenue services can be a good source of income. Some companies offer auto-renewing subscriptions, while others allow customers to unsubscribe from their service at any time.

The rise of subscription-based business models is a growing trend. Subscriptions offer customers a discount or privilege over those who do not subscribe to a service. These offers have proven to work well for subscription-based companies such as Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify.

Services like Hulu and Netflix are subscription services, meaning you pay a monthly fee in return for access to entertainment. These services offer movies, documentaries, TV series, and comedy specials. You can watch them on your TV or on your computer. You can start your own subscription service offer content, products, or services on a recurring basis. When marketed correctly, you can make anywhere from $500 to $50,000 per month in subscription sales. There are subscription services for clothing, for baby products, for cleaning services, or things like digital products on demand. Payhip also has a pretty good system for selling subscriptions, promoting them and hosting them online.

6. Start an online social media agency.

The average income for a social media management company it’s first year is $45,000 to $75,000 a year. This number will vary largely based upon how many clients you are able to obtain and the price of your services. Starting your own social media agency is a great way to make money and it can be done from home and in your spare time.

Starting this kind of business is hard work. It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of hard decisions. To succeed in starting your own social media agency, you must be positive, hard working, reliable and know how social media works. What’s most important is to show results. If you don’t know how to generate results on social media, you’ll need to work with an experienced team of professionals.

You can outsource most of the actual work through a freelancer. You can find social media management freelancers on Fiverr Pro. Here you can work with verified, exceptional talent, that are hand-vetted for quality and level of service. Depending on what kind of packages you will sell, you’ll usually need a content creator, designer, a copywriter and a social media manager to orchestrate it all for your client.

Most social media agencies are charging anywhere from $2500 to $10,000 per month. This number largely depends on how much content needs to be created each month or how much interaction the manager has to do with the client’s social media community. Starting a social media management agency is a great way to make income with a service that is so highly in demand.

7. Start an online training business.

Online training businesses are on the rise, and for many reasons. With many companies cutting back on employee training due to tight budgets, more and more are looking for training online. Online training gives companies the ability to train employees without having to allocate large amounts of time and money to employee training. In addition, courses can be taken from the comfort of people’s homes.

Additionally, online training can be tailored to the specific needs of the company and the employees. With the right platform, businesses can offer a variety of courses, on different topics, to employees all over the world. With this kind of business you can offer various training packages and sell to small businesses and enterprise companies.

The most popular online training niches are computers, technology, career and personal development, health and fitness and entrepreneurship. A training niche is a specialized approach to training based on a specific skill or topic. For example, niche training could include job skills such as Microsoft Excel, web hosting, or auto body repair. Or niche training could focus on a subject matter like digital marketing, accounting, or event planning

Training businesses host online workshops, seminars and one-on-one training. Depending on what kind of clients you can attract, most training businesses will gross $3,000 to $15,000 per month. You can host your training programs, downloadable and learning modules on Payhip.

8. Start a Youtube channel.

Starting a YouTube channel requires time and money, but if you choose a good niche, the payoff in huge. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet. It also offers opportunities for monetization, with advertisements being one of the more popular ways that YouTube channels make an income. It’s free to sign up for a YouTube account, but you’ll need to have a Google account.

Niches are important. They drive your channel’s traffic, and ultimately, your important metrics. Your YouTube channel’s niche is the secret sauce to generating money. There are so many popular niches to choose from. Examples are: Acne Treatments, Hair Extensions, Children’s Toys, Boating, Travel Tours, Luxury Properties, Wealth Strategies, Home Remodeling. When you create a channel that educates, entertains or surprises people, they do really well and you are able to generate a lot of money from the videos that perform well.

Most monetized YouTube channels generate anywhere from $500 a month to $5,000. If you pair the advertising revenue with selling physical products, digital products or courses, you can bring in an annual salary of $50,000+ just from YouTube. A Youtube channel can be started in your spare time and worked on over the weekends and in your free-time.

9. Start a part-time photography business.

Starting a photography business provides many benefits. And unlike starting a photography business, it can be started online. Starting a photography business online is less expensive. You don’t have to have thousands of dollars to get started.

Many people want to start a photography business in their spare time, but they forget to consider all of the details and what it takes to run a business. This, however, is what makes starting this business so exciting. Photography is a visual business. Commercial photography, Product photography, and Editorial photography are the three most popular fields for photographers to enter.

There are a few ways to monetize your photography business. The most obvious one is selling your services as a photographer, but you can also sell photos online. You could put photos on sites like iStock, Shutterstock, or 123RF. You could sell prints at shows. You could also sell your photos to stock agencies. You could also give online workshops and host classes to generate even more money.

A good photographer can make a lot of money. For example, part-time photographers who shoot weddings and sell their packages online can make about $69,000 a year. Photography is one of those industries that is constantly changing and evolving. The photography industry is expected to grow by 5% through 2024. This growth is driven partially by e-commerce, which has grown by 36% in the last decade.

10. Start a mobile beauty business.

Starting a mobile beauty business is a very exciting journey. It involves a lot of planning, preparation, and information gathering. If you are good at doing hair, waxing, eyebrows and eyelash extensions, or makeup you can start a mobile beauty business in your spare time. The demand for beauty services has increased in recent years.

According to research firm IBISWorld, the $10.3 billion beauty services industry will exist through 2022.2 Growth in the number of beauty services establishments, and growth in the number of customers, are factors driving the revenue numbers upward. Customers are spending more on beauty services, especially facial services, lash extensions, and hair coloring. On average, customers spend $99.00 monthly on beauty services.

A mobile beauty business if operated alone can usually generate anywhere from $1000-$4,000 per month, depending on the pricing of the services and client demand for services. If you choose to hire additional beauty therapists to work on the behalf of your business, you can easily generate an upwards of $10,000+ per month. If you choose this route, the entire business can be operated from home.

Hopefully this article offered a few great business ideas to help cover the rent increase and inspired you to generate more money today.

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Adella Pasos

Hi! My name is Adella. I’m a business coach and consultant who helps companies grow. Subscribe to my blog for topics on business, strategy, marketing & sales.