I lean towards renting out housing at market rent in my city to be unethical, so I refuse on ethical grounds to become a landlord. In the long term if the opportunity (e.g. money) arises I would like to build housing charging at-cost rent, but that'd be a charitable activity rather than a profit-seeking one.
I live in New Zealand, which is quite addicted as a country to profiting from real estate. The ability to leverage your money into an asset that provides both enough cashflow to cover costs and interest servicing as well as appreciates in value ~7% annually means that for most people, becoming a landlord is the most reliable path to easy wealth.
Yes, you can become a margin trader, but the cashflow management is much harder, the margin interest rate is higher (here at least), and it is much more difficult compared to buying an existing house and renting it out.
