A lot of people want real estate to be passive. It's not.
People want to hear that it's just sitting back playing golf while your tenants pay the bills.
They don't want to hear that being successful in this business requires a lot of hard work.
First you have to find the right properties, in the right markets for the right prices.
Then you need to underwrite the deals correctly and use the right amount of cash + debt to acquire them.
Then you need to convince the seller to sell to you instead of one of many other competing firms for each deal.
Then you have to acquire tenants, price your units correctly, and get those tenants to pay on time.
Then you have to do what it takes to keep your tenants long term.
Then you have to deal with all of the maintenance and repairs.
You have to do all of this while building a team, getting better at sales, ops, customer service etc.
Real estate is a phenomenal business but it is definitely not passive.
You need to be a real operator if you want to succeed.