The best uncommon investments in 2026 are niche ETFs, self-service businesses, land on the edge of growing cities, discounted debt, executive coaching, parking lots, energy trading, startups and small online businesses, music rights, art, collectible cars, whisky and wine, collectibles, expired intellectual property and unusual rentals. None are guaranteed. The common thread, and the real edge, is knowing something other people do not.
Most people stop at the savings account and real estate. Below are 15 uncommon places where money is made, with what changed since we first wrote this list, what to watch out for and one honest verdict on each. This is education, not financial advice. Prefer video? Watch it on YouTube:
15 uncommon investments at a glance
| # | Investment | Who can do it | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niche-theme ETFs | Anyone with a brokerage account | Fun, volatile, some close |
| 2 | Self-service businesses | Small business owners | Solid, needs operations skill |
| 3 | Land 30 minutes outside the city | Patient capital | Simple, slow, needs 20 years |
| 4 | Other people’s debt and tax liens | Experienced investors | Profitable, legally complex |
| 5 | Executive coaching | Founders and executives | High return on the right person |
| 6 | Parking spots and lots | Property investors | Low-maintenance cash flow |
| 7 | Energy and natural gas trading | Professionals | Very high risk |
| 8 | Startups and online businesses | Accredited investors, buyers | High risk, high upside |
| 9 | Music catalogs and royalties | Retail, via platforms | Niche, platform risk |
| 10 | Art | Collectors, platforms | Illiquid, high fees |
| 11 | Supercars and classic cars | Collectors | Real, but costly to hold |
| 12 | Whisky and fine wine | Collectors, platforms | Illiquid, mixed returns |
| 13 | Rare coins and collectibles | Niche experts | Only if you know the niche |
| 14 | Old patents and copyrights | Creators, lawyers | Clever, legally tricky |
| 15 | Unique holiday rentals | Property owners | Novelty fades, check local rules |
1. ETFs targeting weird niches
Theme ETFs are about as uncommon as investing gets, and they do move money. The Obesity ETF with the ticker SLIM was liquidated years ago, which is the first lesson: niche funds close. The same goes for the Inverse Cramer ETF (SJIM), which bet against the TV host’s stock picks. Neither ticker returns a price today.
Others are alive. The Procure Space ETF, ticker UFO, invests in companies tied to space and closed at $39.86 on 23 October 2026, after rising about 68% in 2025 according to fund data. The Roundhill Meme Stock ETF (MEME) bundles the stocks the WallStreetBets crowd bets on and closed at $6.32. The AdvisorShares Vice ETF (VICE), which held tobacco, alcohol and gambling companies, had its last quote in our price data on 21 August 2026, so confirm it still trades before you touch it.
Our take: use theme ETFs as a small slice, not a core holding. Check the expense ratio and how long the fund has existed.
2. Self-whatever
Automation is a bigger deal than you think, and before you picture robots, think vending machines. Self-service car washes are a classic: a fraction of the staff and upkeep of a big automatic wash. Operators have cited equipment costs in the range of $25,000 to $35,000 per bay, excluding land or lease, and revenue of around $1,500 per bay per month, with break-even in roughly three years. Treat those as the original figures from our 2023 research, not guarantees.
Self-storage is another: you need space, security and little else. Add laundromats, RV rentals and self-service photo printing, where you upload pictures and they arrive in the mail. There is value in having photos in physical form. Self-service spreads because labor is the largest cost for most small businesses.
3. Buy land 30 minutes out and wait 20 years
People try to make real estate complicated, but with time and some money it can be the simplest route. Every city has a main road and a center. From the center, drive straight for 30 minutes, then stop.
Buy the land around you and wait 20 years.
It is a matter of time before the city expands and businesses look for land. That is when you sell at many times what you paid, in the best cases 10 to 20 times. If you have time and the city is clearly growing, buy the nearest agricultural land and wait it out. Check zoning, access to utilities and carrying costs such as property tax before you buy.
4. Buying other people’s debt or tax liens
When people borrow against a car or a house, that debt is traded on secondary markets. Banks do not want to spend time chasing hard-to-collect debtors, so they sell the debt at a discount, because some money is better than none. You can buy the debt, collect the payments and interest, and if the borrower defaults, legally take the collateral.
Tax liens work the same way: you pay a property’s overdue taxes and earn interest, or in some cases the property. In some cases debtors can even buy their own debt at a deep discount. The rules differ by state and country, and mistakes are costly, so learn the law first and consider a specialist.
5. Executive coaches
Coaching works, and great coaching works extremely well. A good executive coach is a mentor who can save you millions of dollars in mistakes and help you get where you are going in half the time. This is why top executive coaches have charged six figures a year, sometimes plus a commission on the value they add.
It is not therapy, where they mostly ask questions. It is closer to a second opinion backed by expertise. Your business life changes when someone keeps you focused and clears a path. Not everyone can afford that, which is why we built the Alux app: we pay experts and distill their best findings into short audio sessions. Download the app to see current plans.
6. Parking spots
You were not expecting this one. Parking is in demand, there is little differentiation, and technology has made it possible to run a lot with self-service payment and no staff. As long as there is a reason for people to drive to your location, you win.
Parking lots can out-cash-flow commercial property with a tenth of the costs.
You do not run a business; you have space, a barrier and a payment system, plus dynamic pricing for peak events. We like parking because it produces cash flow with little outside investment, and the location, which gains value over time, is the main asset. The usual plan is 10 to 20 years of profit and a sale to a developer.
7. Trading natural gas and energy
Energy traders are reportedly paid in the range of $200,000 a year at the low end to around half a million with bonuses, and that is salary, what firms pay employees to trade. There are many ways in. You can trade financial products digitally like stocks, trade futures, or, if you are advanced, buy, store and resell the physical product. There is also the logistics side: transport, processing and pipeline capacity leased to shippers.
It is among the most profitable and least common ways to make money, and also one of the easiest to lose money in. Without professional training, treat it as something to learn, not something to bet on.
8. Early-stage startups or buying digital businesses
In the US, an accredited investor is someone with more than $1 million in net financial assets (beyond the primary residence in the common definition) or income above $200,000 in each of the last two years ($300,000 with a spouse). Accredited investors can invest in early-stage companies.
Writing $25,000 to $50,000 checks into small companies with potential can be one of the best investments of your life. Venture firms make 10 to 20 bets knowing that about four fail completely, three roughly break even, two are profitable, and, if you are good, one knocks it out of the park and pays for everything else. Platforms such as AngelList, founded by Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, and Seedblink in Europe make it easier to find deals.
If you do not want to be a portfolio investor, buy a viable business. Acquire.com, led by our friend and serial entrepreneur Andrew Gazdecki, lists businesses for sale from about $10,000 to tens of millions. Always check the numbers and the customer concentration before you buy.
9. Music catalogs
Music is a real asset class. A great song earns royalties for years. Most people think artists own their songs, but often the label owns the masters, and the artist gets a fraction. For an outside investor, there was usually no way in.
Technology has opened a door. Platforms let artists sell fractional ownership in a song or its royalties, and when the song is played on streaming services, radio or in a store, the earnings are shared with owners. Royal, a US platform co-founded by Opendoor co-founder JD Ross and a DJ, sold music rights as limited digital assets. Some of the early names in this space have faded, so platform risk is real, and royalty income is only as good as the song’s staying power. Our view remains that fractional ownership of artists, clubs, creators and streamers will keep growing.
10. Art
The paintings you do not understand on rich people’s walls are often a store of value. Art tends to behave differently from stocks, which is why wealthy collectors use it for diversification. Apart from the top end, though, art is illiquid: it can take months or years to sell, with high commissions at auction houses, so only money you can leave alone for years belongs here.
The market used to be closed to ordinary investors. Fractional-share platforms have changed that by buying pieces and sharing the proceeds on resale, but they charge fees and returns are never guaranteed. Our advice: buy art you like, know the artist’s auction record, and treat any gain as a bonus.
11. Supercar collecting
Collecting ultra-luxury items, from watches to Hermès bags to pens, has been profitable overall, and supercars have led. An average car loses value every year. A limited-run supercar has collector appeal and is as close to mechanical art as you can get, which is why classic cars tend to hold and gain value, especially as the industry moves to electric.
Porsche is a good entry point: many old 911 models, including the Targa, sell for more than $1 million today, far above their original price even after inflation. Ferrari has long been a stronger long-term investment than Lamborghini, and rarer pieces from Bugatti or Pagani sit above that. Remember storage, insurance and maintenance, and that the collector market moves in cycles.
12. Whisky and fine wine
Fractional investing is here to stay, and we expect most industries that rely on appreciating assets to follow. Rare whisky and fine wine attracted money because they were seen as outperforming gold and stocks over some periods. Platforms such as Vinovest let ordinary investors participate without holding the bottles, and the platform buys, stores and resells for you.
The caution is that returns are not steady, fees and storage costs are real, and exits take time. Prices can fall after a boom, as many cask investors learned. Do your own research on the platform’s track record, and keep this to a small slice of your portfolio.
13. Rare coins and strange collectibles
Stamps and rare coins are something our generation tends to skip, but there is a collector market. The stranger and more niche it is, the more obsessed people are with it, from comic books and trading cards to sneakers, unopened old soda bottles and vintage Pez dispensers. Some of these sell for thousands of dollars each.
Our honest advice: unless your world revolves around a niche community, be careful. Demand is limited and prone to hype. NFTs gave us beanie-baby vibes, and that market has collapsed for most buyers.
14. Old patents and copyrights
You can buy old copyrights, books, logos or anything commercially creative that is no longer protected, and relaunch it. Take the fidget spinner. Catherine Hettinger, a chemical engineer, filed a patent in 1993 for a spinning toy, and it was issued in 1997. It lapsed in 2005 for lack of commercial interest, and the toy became a global craze in 2017. Credit for the modern version is disputed, but the lesson holds: unprotected ideas get used by everyone.
The same logic applies to books. Dale Carnegie died in 1955, so in countries that protect works for 70 years after the author’s death, the term for his writing ended with 2025, though the rules differ by country, edition and publication date. That is why you can find many editions of old classics from different publishers. Check the legal status carefully before you reprint anything.
15. Unique holiday rentals
What if there is a Potato Airbnb in Idaho that has rented for around $1,000 for three nights, or a boot home in New Zealand with similar numbers? People pay for the novelty. Examples we found in 2023, and rates have likely moved since:
- Cave homes listed at around $1,500 a night.
- Literal castles at about $2,000 a night.
- An OMG tab where you can browse crazy, weird homes.
Our generation is hungry for experiences and will pay extra for a story to tell. Before you build one, check local short-term rental rules, which have tightened in many cities.
The gold is in what you know that others do not
Each of the 15 requires a slight information edge. To make money in any of them you need an advantage: you know something other people do not. That is where the profit is.
So look at your own life and find the thing you spend time learning because it is fun. There is something you do for fun that other people would call work. That is the gold mine. Find where the financial arbitrage is and go after it. Almost nobody starts these businesses out of calling. They do it for the money first, get good at it, and turn it into a calling later. This is why “find your passion” is overrated: it assumes you do not already have one.
Do it for the money in the early days and figure out how to handle from there.
It is easier to move fast when you have some gas in the tank.
Keep reading
- 7 ways to invest money, ranked from worst to best: the mainstream options compared with this list
- 15 investments that pay you forever: long-term income ideas
- 15 investments rich people make that poor people ignore: more places the wealthy put money
FAQ
What are the best uncommon investments?
It depends on your skills and capital. For most people, self-service businesses, land on a city’s edge and small online businesses are the most accessible. Collectibles, startups and energy trading need expertise and tolerance for losses.
Are niche ETFs a good investment?
Sometimes, but treat them as a small speculative slice. SLIM and SJIM were liquidated, while the Procure Space ETF (UFO) closed at $39.86 on 23 October 2026.
Who can invest in startups?
In the US, accredited investors, defined as more than $1 million in net financial assets excluding the home, or income above $200,000 a year ($300,000 with a spouse). Others can buy small businesses or use equity crowdfunding.
Is art a good investment?
It can be a store of value, but it is illiquid and carries high fees. Invest only money you can leave for years and buy what you understand.
Can you invest in whisky or wine?
Yes, directly or through platforms like Vinovest, but returns vary, fees and storage add up, and exits are slow. Keep it to a small part of your portfolio.
What is the biggest risk with uncommon investments?
Illiquidity and information. If you cannot sell quickly, or you do not know more than the person on the other side, your odds are worse than they look.
How we put this list together
We chose investments that ordinary savers rarely hear about, then checked what changed since 2023, including which funds and platforms still exist. Figures marked as original come from our own earlier research, and nothing here is personal financial advice.
Last updated: October 2026.
