Like what?
Lets start at a simple 5% scenario:
Muni tax free bond paying 3%-4%, if you are in the 33-39.5% tax bracket you are in the 4-5% range with little to no risk.. on 2 Million bucks that’s 100k a year, are you going to become an active owner of a restaurant tying up that much capital for another 50k annually? I sure wouldn’t.
As to the 10% average returns one of the obvious, although they do have some wild swings, even after the collapse in 2007/8 REIT’s still average 10% or more over the long term. Hell even the S&P has managed close to that even if you start with the big loss year of 2008.. its still up about 8-9% per year on average. And those are about as passive as you could get.
Me personally if I had 2 Million I wanted to maximize returns on, I’d probably put most of it into real estate if I felt I had to invest for return, and if I was going to be an active investor, finding commercial apartment complexes with cap rates in the double digits are not hard to find at all.