3 Offbeat Investments must be taken into account

When most people think of investing in real estate, homes, mini-malls or apartment buildings come to mind first. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg for real estate investment. Offbeat consider the following real estate investment opportunities. These investments can have a significant impact over the long term, and very well change your financial future.

1. Recreational Vehicles (RV).

Believe it or not, RV rentals and sales are a very big market. With baby boomers leaning into retirement and young families seeking a way to lessen their vacation costs, many people are willing to buy or rent an RV.

If you're hoping to purchase an RV to save money on your family vacations, keep the RV until it makes sense to sell it. Make routine cosmetic updates to the RV throughout the years to match the expectations of buyers.

Consider renting out the RV for a profit. The RV rental market is hungry with renters but is much underserved. You can easily rent out class C motor home for 7-nights for a minimum of $125 per night! If you're fully booked every week out of the year, you can earn $46,000 in just one year!

For class A RV you can charge in upwards of $200 per night, or $1,400 for a 7-day week - which equates to $73,000 over the course of a fully booked year. Pop-up campers can be rented for as much as $75 per night - or just over $27,000 for a fully booked year.

Even if you're only able to rent out your RV for two weeks out of the month for $125 per night, you're able to earn $23,000 per year!

2. Self-Storage.

Self-storage is a big industry. The shaky state of the economy may be partially to blame as the number of multi-generation homes and families downsizing their living quarters are increasing.

The Self Storage Association reports that one in ten families rent out-of-home storage space. Typically, units rent between $50 per month for a small unit to over $200 for a sizeable storage unit.

The cost of purchasing a self-storage facility varies widely. It can cost as little as $200,000 or as much as $3,000,000 depending on the size, location and demand for the service in the area.

Keep in mind, aside from the mortgage, there is still overhead. Utilities must be operating in order to keep the storage facility at an acceptable temperature; this is to avoid ruined personal property. Also, employees might be necessary, as well as a security system. But as a whole, the investment generates fairly passive income.

3. Online real estate.

Online real estate, otherwise known as websites, requires very little investment and can typically generate a good ROI over time. Traditionally real estate is thought of as tangible, but don't disregard the earning power of online property. When you consider that Candy.com sold for over 5 million dollars, online real estate has the potential for astronomical returns.

Approximate startup costs are as follows: $10 for a domain name, $0-75 for a standard website template to over $750 for a unique website design, and content creation starting at around $15 for a quality article.

The key to making money online is having high quality and a high quantity of content in addition to money making streams like marketing other company's products, on-site advertising, or product sales.

There you have it - three markets where competition isn't very fierce, and the bar to entry is relatively low. Investing in any of the three offbeat investments is mentioned, you have the opportunity to maximize their investment dollars. And over time, you may be able to invest in a full-fledged business.