If you cannot get a loan, then real estate is a much less powerful investment. Cash flow is key, if you have one properties that you put each down $20k, pay $1000/month on and rent for $1200 that is $2000/month in extra cash. If you instead buy the property for 200k you get $1200 in cash per month. Of course in reality you will never have all your property rented all the time, so it is more reasonable to say with 10 properties you get $1600/month - and sometimes get a $200 bonus while with 1 you sometimes have $1200 and sometimes $0 - which is much harder on the budget.
Of course anyone thinking about this needs to see an accountant to run all the different numbers, but in general real estate generally only makes sense if you can take a loan and thus have less risk.
If you cannot get a loan, then real estate is a much less powerful investment. Cash flow is key, if you have one properties that you put each down $20k, pay $1000/month on and rent for $1200 that is $2000/month in extra cash. If you instead buy the property for 200k you get $1200 in cash per month. Of course in reality you will never have all your property rented all the time, so it is more reasonable to say with 10 properties you get $1600/month - and sometimes get a $200 bonus while with 1 you sometimes have $1200 and sometimes $0 - which is much harder on the budget.
Of course anyone thinking about this needs to see an accountant to run all the different numbers, but in general real estate generally only makes sense if you can take a loan and thus have less risk.