I've repeatedly been told by people who've done it (including my parents) never to become a landlord, because it's absolute hell and you'll end up making under minimum wage and tenants will fuck you over until you're even in the red and it's impossible & expensive to evict anyone even when they're not paying and causing more and more damage to the house with each passing day.
Then again, I've had others tell me it's awesome, you just have to pick your location carefully (one exclusively bought very close to nursing schools, which seemed to select for tenants who'd stick around at least a couple years and who'd pay their rent and not run a meth lab or smear shit on the walls or anything like that).
Yes, because one thing a landlord does is assume the risk of bad tenants and high-turnover. Good, stable, long-term tenants hate this -- "Why am I paying so much for rent, when my landlord doesn't seem to do anything?" -- but as long as you're a renter you're going to pay for this risk one way or another. And it's not at all clear that you can socialize this risk and still end up with units anybody in their right mind wants to live in. Yes, I know about Vienna. This ain't Vienna. There's very little evidence the U.S. is capable of doing it. Public housing here is inevitably a race to the bottom.
Then again, I've had others tell me it's awesome, you just have to pick your location carefully (one exclusively bought very close to nursing schools, which seemed to select for tenants who'd stick around at least a couple years and who'd pay their rent and not run a meth lab or smear shit on the walls or anything like that).