Is landlording my best option for reliable returns?

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I've made enough money to buy a large multiplex house with lots of bedrooms. It's actually not that much, since I've found an area where housing prices are low and monthly rents are high. I want to rent out individual rooms, since the going rates for individual rooms here adds up to more than renting out the entire unit. I would be able to live off the monthly rents.

I know there are risks, and there is work involved, but all in all, the risks seem less and the dividends greater than securities investing (even with REITs), the work (and risks) seem less than starting other kinds of businesses, and the returns are definitely greater than with a guaranteed interest product like a treasury bond or CD.

Also, in my experience, every landlord I know who owned houses and rented out rooms, continued to make money throughout the recession. Maybe a tenant lost their job and had to be replaced, maybe a tenant was late with payments, but the landlord never lost any money. At worst, they made less money for a time, but they were still getting checks coming in every month, and their expenses continued to be minimal, so their profits remained high. (They owned their properties outright, as I will.) Sure, it's possible that housing prices could be down many years from now when I want to sell, but that won't affect my monthly income, and I will have made plenty of money off the house over my period of ownership, so it's not like a lower selling price will be a loss. Even if rental prices go down for some reason, I can live off less than what the current rents would be. And I'll have insurance and an LLC to protect me from liability.

So I just have to ask, am I overlooking something? Is there a different way I could make healthy, reliable returns that I should look at?