For example let's say you buy a house for £100,000 and you want to rent it out to people There are two ways that's an investment There are two ways you're making money from it Firstly let's say you're charging some rent to the people living in your house Let's say you're charging them £830 a month that becomes £10,000 a year And so every year you are making £10,000 in rental income which is 10% of what you originally paid for the house And beyond that every year you're just making £10,000 in pure profit So that's pretty good But secondly it's an investment because the value of the house itself would probably rise over time In general there is a trend in most developed countries that house prices tend to rise over the long term And so your house will probably be worth more than £100,000 in 10 years time And in fact in the UK historically in the past some people have said that house prices have doubled every 10 years And so you've made money off of the rental income But you've also made money off of the capital gains which is what we call it when an asset increases in value over time 