I don’t know why people are so insistent it’s not a job rather than arguing that it’s a bad job, etc. Small landlords almost certainly put a lot of time into maintaining the property, handling occupancy, reporting income, etc. How is it any less a job than renting out bouncy houses. Sure some landlords might outsource all this, in which case it’s more akin to holding interest bearing assets, but for a small landlord it almost certainly is a job under any definition of the word.