The danger in real estate investing is that 80% of the time it's (moderately) easy money, 10% of the time it's annoyingly break-even, and 10% of the time it's absolute soul-crushing, bankruptcy-inducing devastation.
And since you're usually in one or two properties to start, if your first one is the tenant from hell in a downmarket, you're going to feel it.
There is truth to this, you have to structure yourself a certain way.
The best thing you can do is structuring everything through a corporation. This also allows some additional avenues when considering financing too. It also gives you the liability shield in case things go sideways.
There's overhead here though, for sure, and plenty of ways to go about it the wrong way, many footguns exist. Its not stress free.
If you want truly passive investments, index funds are the way to go. Which is why I think buying a home for living should fundamentally have different criteria
And since you're usually in one or two properties to start, if your first one is the tenant from hell in a downmarket, you're going to feel it.