As with most investments, real estate is potentially profitable if you're careful, thorough, and knowledgable. It can be low margin though, so you're going to

As with most investments, real estate is potentially profitable if you're careful, thorough, and knowledgable. It can be low margin though, so you're going to lose most of your profit if you genuinely intend to be fully hands-off. Every call out of a blue-collar professional often gets very expensive very quickly, along with any scheduled upkeep (yardwork and snow clearing). I know small-time RE investors worth single digit millions, and we still help each other out with hands-on stuff. But if you intend to do it carelessly in bulk, completely hands off and paying property managers for everything, for it to still be profitable you'll need to take unreasonable amounts of risk, which nobody knowledgeable would do with their own money. That's where social media comes in, they need the dumb money. So they can make the massively risky play and reap their cuts when times are good, and walk away when things go poorly.