Ad Space on Your House

I just remembered a former co-employee of mine in the Philippines who is nearly financially independent. He works a normal office job but his house is a mere 5 minute walking distance from the company we work for which enables him to save on transportation and meal costs plus this enables him to have plenty of time to rest and get more time for his family...

His Home is an Asset

Did I forgot to mention that the company is minutes away from a major highway? That his house is right along the highway itself almost surrounded by condominiums and many office buildings. You can see that the real estate value of his real estate property is already valuable because of its prime location but he does not sell ever waiting for his property to increase in value as time passes by.

His house is old and could would definitely benefit from a paint job. It is two storey. But his house is different from most houses. It has a big billboard on top of its roof.

The size of the billboard is big enough that you can plaster a real size picture of a van in it. The sight of a two storey house with a van sized billboard on its roof might seem awkward but having passed by it everyday to and from work one gets used to it and treat it as normal.

Eventually I even wished that I have the same good passive income business at the roof of my house. I learned from another colleague that he is being paid well for renting his roof space for billboards that even if he quits work he would still survive.

Advertising On House Walls

I tried to research online for other similar people who earn money by renting a part of their real estate property to advertisers and found one old story from 2012 from the US News website. The story is Ad Space On Your Door Step? Company Pays to Turn Homes Into Billboards.

To give a summary of the story a company pays the homeowners to have the right to paint their house with certain colours and then plaster their exterior walls with ads. The company has received thousands of applicant homeowners. He says most of the applicants are homeowners in financial need who usually are unable to pay their mortgages.

I can see this as a good way to earn money for practical people who treat their house as an investment. I can see problems though with people whose neighbours have problems with their area being used for commercial purposes especially those neighbourhoods with nearby landmarks. Neighbours have come to bitter feuds over issues lesser than this.

It is a Good Business

Going back to the story of my former co-employee who has a billboard on top of his house. I researched the 2020 rental price of billboards similar to his with a similar highway position location. The owner of the billboard space is asking 60,000 Philippine Pesos per month or about $1200. This is almost equivalent to 3 times the monthly salary of a worker in the Philippines earning minimum wage.

I also checked US billboard rental rates for a similar sized billboard. It is about $1500-$30000 per month. One can easily determine that one can greatly supplement their finances renting their homes for advertisements. If one is even lucky one even gets to more than replace his work income with just this sort of business.

How to Get in the Business

I tried locating companies and even ad agencies that actively source for homes to put their billboards or advertisements on but so far have found none online. I guess it is up for the interested home owners to contact ad agencies or even companies to see if they are interested in them using the homeowners home as a place to put advertisements.

Homeowners interested in this kind of income can also visually put Ad Space For Lease signs across their real estate property strategically locating them where potential renters can visually make out the ad space they are renting. This includes building the billboards by themselves.

Conclusion

Your house can either be a liability or an asset. It becomes a liability if you are spending money on it especially if you are still paying the mortgage. A house has expenses as well like spending on its upkeep and becomes an even bigger liability if you are forced to continually beautify it just to be able to brag about it.

A house should be an asset first before being a possession you just spend money on just to be able to brag about it. If you can persuade advertisers and companies to pay you to display their advertisement in your house then your house may not look beautiful and even quirky but you have a better feeling because you know you make money while just relaxing in your house and doing nothing.