Not true. I currently own one unit, and do have a slightly negative cashflow, but that's not really a problem.
The biggest advantage of real estate is that enables you to hedge your capital. My bank happily gave me a loan for 80% of the property value.
I would not be able to get a loan at these conditions without having the real estate as collateral.
So, while I do pay a small amount per month myself (which has gone down substantially recently due to 10% indexation), my tenant pays the biggest share of my loan.
As for rules and legislative obligations: I pay a professional organization to manage this for me. This does come at a cost, but it buys me a peace of mind. (It's all about risk vs reward, so no big surprise there.)
And finally: once the loan is finished, I can hedge that rental income to finance (multiple) new properties.
Update: one additional remark for those who might be triggered by this comment: I prefer to buy older buildings, so I have to make sure that l have "some" extra cash available for big ticket items coming my way: replacement of roofs, elevators and such. So I am betting on having to invest some extra cash over the course of one or more decades. However, if you do not want to do that, you can reduce the risk by going for newly-built, paying the extra premium upfront, have a reasonably steady cash flow from the start.
Also, as a rule of thumb, consider 10/12 of the yearly rent as a "regular" income. This should be more than enough to cover the "normal" expenses you might have.
The biggest advantage of real estate is that enables you to hedge your capital. My bank happily gave me a loan for 80% of the property value.
I would not be able to get a loan at these conditions without having the real estate as collateral.
So, while I do pay a small amount per month myself (which has gone down substantially recently due to 10% indexation), my tenant pays the biggest share of my loan.
As for rules and legislative obligations: I pay a professional organization to manage this for me. This does come at a cost, but it buys me a peace of mind. (It's all about risk vs reward, so no big surprise there.)
And finally: once the loan is finished, I can hedge that rental income to finance (multiple) new properties.
Update: one additional remark for those who might be triggered by this comment: I prefer to buy older buildings, so I have to make sure that l have "some" extra cash available for big ticket items coming my way: replacement of roofs, elevators and such. So I am betting on having to invest some extra cash over the course of one or more decades. However, if you do not want to do that, you can reduce the risk by going for newly-built, paying the extra premium upfront, have a reasonably steady cash flow from the start.
Also, as a rule of thumb, consider 10/12 of the yearly rent as a "regular" income. This should be more than enough to cover the "normal" expenses you might have.