The economy is so screwed that this is basically the only sensible way to invest for the middle class. There are no other good way to invest savings unless you are multimillionaire/billionaire.

I’m talking about mom and pop landlords that still go to their regular jobs and likely themselves live in an apartment, not about apartments owned by big corporations.

In the past one would use savings to open a business, now it is much more prohibitive and also much higher risk that one of the monopolies will drive you out of business.