Real estate is ONLY worth it if you can get a cheap mortgage, AND if you can actively develop your asset (by renovation, re-zoning, etc). Otherwise don't waste your time.
Yes, some people may claim they did 200-300% but it's almost always GROSS and not NET, once you include all the buy-sell costs/renovation/time spent it's really not amazing.
Moreover, even if you made 300% in 10 years (which is exceptional), in CAGR terms it's only 11.6123%. Guess what? The S&P 500 did better in the last 10 years.
In fact even if you made 500% in 20 years which sounds amazing, in CAGR terms it's even worse:
8.3798% p.a = awful returns.
Real estate is great if you have dirty money you want to hide. Not as an
investment unless you are an expert in your area and really know what you are doing, and it's your full-time activity.
Most people I talked to that showed off about their real estate returns only have returns on Excel, if they actually calculated their real returns (which you can only do when you SELL), they would jump from the roof of their building.