Real estate is the only business I am aware of where a bank will loan you 80% or more of the price of the investment. Try asking the bank to loan you 80% of the money to buy stocks. With that amount of initial money you should be able to purchase ~$1 million in rental properties. I don't know your market, but it should not be hard for you to look at other local rentals and determine what your return on investment will be for rentals of that value.

I mean this as nicely as possible, if your biggest concern about becoming a landlord is not being able to do "self-help" evictions, i.e. changing the locks or equivalent if someone does not pay, you are in for a very steep learning curve. If it reaches this point with a tenant, many things have likely gone wrong along the way that could have been addressed.

Personally, I think picking tenants is the most important part of landlording. Good tenants will tell you they are having financial problems, they will voluntarily leave or figure something out with you. I have had to wait months for a tenant to get their life together, but they almost always make good on rent that is owed. If you like your tenants and they like you, landlording can be enjoyable. I have had over 100 tenants by this point, I have screwed up picking a few. But still no disasters, I have never had to evict a tenant. I never had one intentionally damage a place or try to cause me a problem. A few were just a bad fit for me and/or the building. I let them walk. In the end I think it saves me money/time/aggravation. It is a business, it is not personal.

Most of landlord horror stories I know involve a non-responsive landlord. One that is either absent and/or poorly delegates the work to a "property manager" who does not care if the buildings go to hell and tenants problems go unacknowledged.

Best of luck if you want to take on property rental, I like it, but it is not for everyone.