I have a number of friends that live off real estate holdings. None of them say they are retired. Constantly busy with maintenance.

Half of them are focusing on selling their properties as tenants leave.

I have a buddy who cashed out his retirement savings, rushed into 3 properties that are pretty run down, and now stresses about repairs because he doesn't have the cash on hand.

He wanted to be a slumlord because he didn't want to work a job, over-leveraged himself, and is now stressed all the time.

Not FIREd yet and also not an active real estate investor, but I currently rent one property that I use to live in

My plan is that everytime I move out of a house, I rent it out

Not gonna rake in a bunch of money or anything, but over the long term, I'd hope it shorterns my FIRE timeline

I have four rentals. Each cash flows about net $300-500/mo or <$22k/yr. ($750k value w approx $280k in equity.) In hindsight, I would have preferred to VTSAX and chill. I hire a property manager so I am not very hands on, but if/when something does happen, it wipes out entire year earnings. Ex: replacing windows…easily $4k. Turnovers and needing to renovate the place after 7 years… $15k.