Why Real Estate?

[Joshua Martin]

Hey gang, 

Glad to be on this site and poking around learning all the information I can about REI, but this afternoon I just stepped back (figuratively, of course), and thought to consider the question: why real estate at all?

  More specifically, I'm learning and becoming a wise steward of my own finances (after living care free in this respect for several years), but, in a funny way, seeing that movie The Big Short changed my conception about what money can do and the ways we can make it work for us (I know, somewhat bizarre - my friends left only with terror of Wall Street), so I was initially (and still am) researching stock market investments, but then I stumbled across this site. Now, because it seems so difficult to give some return on investment percentage for the active investor, i.e. someone who flips or buys and holds, why does real estate seem so appealing? To put it bluntly, how much money can you make in this business?

  Thanks in advance for anything someone might have to contribute to this, it was sort of a wandering thought as I'm weighing potential other options.

JTM