When people think about investing, they think about more traditional ways such as trading stocks and investing in bonds and/or different funds. There are, however, several other uncommon but creative ways to invest, some of which are listed below.

These uncommon ways of investment are typically a great way to diversify your portfolio and can be a nice way to try something new if you are tired of traditional ways of investment.

Lending Clubs

Lending clubs are essentially peer-to-peer lending sites. Investors can lend small amounts of money to borrowers; most can browse and choose who they want to lend the money to depending on their credit eligibility, amount, and purpose. Typically these loans are all short-term, though these terms can vary.

Money is made by investors from interest rates, with most programs offering 10% or higher return on investment. Sites such as Prosper.com can help you double-check the borrower’s credit eligibility if investors are unsure whether or not their investments will be paid back.

A cool thing with lending clubs is that it allows investors to help out an actual person in a more personal way than buying bonds or stocks. Investors can be helping someone make their debt more manageable or providing start-up capital for someone’s dream business; either way, someone’s life can be changed due to one’s investment.

Tax Lien Investing

If taxes are unpaid, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can put a lien on a property — meaning they take ownership of a part of a property. This prevents homeowners from selling or refinancing their homes until the overdue taxes are paid. These properties are then typically auctioned off as tax lien certificates by the local government to investors. The property owners then pay the investor as they now hold the lien of their property.

If you wish to start investing in tax lien certificates, find out if your surrounding county offices hold auctions for liens. Research properties and the property owners before investing in a lien to ensure that the lien will be paid, or if, in the rare occasion the lien cannot be paid, you have a good property to sell. The typical rule of thumb is that the property itself should be worth more than the lien.

Collectibles

This is quite an unusual way of investment, but can be pretty fun if you are into antiques and objects of nostalgia. However, it is hard to predict the returns of this type of investment as it is dependent completely on many different kinds of variables.

If you wish to participate in this type of investment, it is highly encouraged for you to choose an item you know quite a lot about, not only so you will be more interested in collecting these items but also so you can identify what items are more valuable to purchase.

Some items you can consider investing in can include :

• Rare records
• Comic books
• Antique toys
• Action figures
• Old or other currencies
• Art
• Wine

Sites such as eBay makes it easy to not only check the current value of collectibles but to buy or sell them as well.

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