As you may have surmised, what it means to do something passively varies mightily from one person to another. Some people refer to the income from their 8 personally-managed rental properties as “passive income.” Sorry, no.
Now, as you might have noticed, the big dividing line between “active” and “passive” is whether or not you take on the role of landlord. When you invest in other people’s deals and they do all the work, I consider that passive real estate investing.
If passive real estate investing is so amazing, why would anyone want to own rental properties? Well, when you own the asset, you have total control of what to do with the property.