My grandparents on my dad's side were landlords. They started with one two-story house, lived upstairs and rented out the 1st floor. Grandpa was a barber and had his shop in the garage behind the house. When they paid that house off, they bought a 2nd, and then a 3rd. Then a cottage on an island in a lake just north of here. Then a trailer in a senior's park in FL. He retired in his 70's, fished all summer at the cottage and fished all winter in FL. They had vary good success with renters in the 40's-60's with several long-term older ladies that never missed rent for decades. Then in the late 60's early 70's those old ladies started passing away and the next generation of renters started damaging the apartments, skipping rent, stealing electricity from the upstairs, using the apartments for base of burglary operations, etc.... It was a nightmare for my grandma to get rid of the houses. Took about 15 years to get rid of them as they kept defaulting on land contracts and she kept getting them back.
I think the mentality now is "If I can't have anything nice, you shouldn't be able to either." Sad, but that's the way it is in a lot of places now. :thumbdown: