It can fuck you over or make you financially independent in 10-20 years. The problem is that you need a lot of money to get started, and this high barrier to entry keeps the normies out, but the market is only getting tighter, especially as Cali-style "Luxury Apartments" take over the mid-range that only large Investment firms can afford to purchase.
tl;dr: The correct way to do it is buy in with other people and spread the risk with a large number of properties. Going solo, especially with a low number of properties, is a ticket to sad, sad times if one of them goes belly up or vacant on you. This is also risky because you need to make sure no one is skimming or trying to do straight up fraud.
Depending on where you buy, historically property values have outpaced inflation (or more accurately, real estate has been used to subtly absorb inflation) or even the prime rate so even if you go into eye watering debt your equity should keep you afloat, but you'll have put in a lot of time and have not much to show for it.
The other problem with the advice is that the videos always show people who have like 20 houses and 10 apartment buildings chilling on the beach because they have enough built in pricing to farm everything out to a management company. Until you're making enough to give some profit to someone else, you need to do that. That usually means working two jobs for 5 years or more - your normal one and then the one where you deal with your tenants slowly destroying your house.
