I think the main money maker isn't rent. It's owning (or at least having a mortgage on) property that doubles in value every ten years.

The rent often just pays for the mortgage and upkeep. The main payday comes when they sell it all off to the next parasite.

It really depends on the nature of the rental and your area. If instead of building a house you build 4 closely stacked duplexes and charged each one double what the mortgage would be you'd definitely make money, but you'd also be an extortionate leech. In my area someone built 4 nice duplexes on a double lot (probably around 1.5 acres) and is now renting them at $1800 each. The land was probably less than $55k and the cost of construction was likely less than $1 mil. At 5% interest on a 30 year loan their monthly payment would be $5,600, but they're bringing in $14,400 per month.

$1800 for rent is an extortionate price in my area (it's big city apartment rental prices, with a pool and gym), even after interest rates went up.

On the other hand, I knew a couple who were landlords for nearly 20 years. They rarely raised the rents and even in 2022 they were still charging <$1000 per month for a full house because that paid the costs and for them it was an investment, not a source of income.

They finally sold their rental homes and made about $70k over what they originally paid on each house. Doing the math that comes out to be a roughly 8.5% annual percentage return without counting the rent gained each month. That's a fairly solid investment without being a sucky person.

"Landlords are rich leeches" is still true because the vast majority of property in the US is not owned by hard working people who are investing their earnings owning a handful of properties at most, but by property companies and hedge funds.

It's hard to get a good return on your investment in residential real estate without using leverage.

For instance: You don't buy one place outright. You buy 5 with 20% down. You may not have positive cash flow, but at long as it isn't negative not only do you get all the increase in value, you also get more equity every month as the tenants pay your mortgages.

If you bought it outright and over some period of time the tenants have paid your entire investment and the price of the property doubles, you doubled your money. If you buy 5 and over some period of time the tenants pay your mortgage and initial investment and the properties have doubled in value you have increased your initial investment 10X. And before the big expensive renovations come in, you can sell and buy something else if you're not equipped to deal with that.

Also if you are just breaking even to get free property but you want to start getting passive income, after a few years you can refi to a longer term and lower your mortgage payments to get in the black every month.

This isn't advice, fuck anybody buying up single family homes to rent, just showing one way they can generate both wealth and passive income for nothing. Literally nothing if they're using a property management company.

Fuck anybody buying up single family homes to rent. I know I already said that, but it bears repeating.

They're supposed to do all those things but most don't. I'm a condo super and the owners who own and rent multiple units are the worst. Their tenants are always calling me about every issue, and I have to remind them that I deal with the common areas, not the interior of their unit unless there's a flood. Those landlords tend to own multiple units and just assume I will deal with their issues, but I won't. When you own, you're the super, manager, admin, etc. But most landlords I've encountered just wanna collect the check

The places I've stayed so far pay a company to deal with these issues in place of the owner.

I can't speak on what that costs, however.

They also assume all the risk of the property too. Tenants can leave as they please but landlords are stuck with the property if the market turns.