There are many ways to make money with real estate. A bunch of them are more jobs than investments, though. Wholesaling and fix-and-flipping are like that.
Rentals are more of a real investment. If you manage them yourself there is a property management job involved. If you hire this out, its pretty much a passive investment.
If you want to hold rentals, read in the Landlording forum about expenses. Read all that discussion, then form your opinion about what you think.
Lower end rentals are often more profitable. You should be able to find LOTS of properties in Indiana you can buy and turn into profitable rentals. A dead simple formula is to take the rent, divide by two to take out expenses. Subtract out some amount for cash flow. $100 is a common number. The remaining amount is your maximum payment. Do a PV calculation ( present value) to get then loan amount. Use this as the maximum you will pay, even if you pay cash or put in a down payment.
If you're putting in cash, either paying cash or a down payment, do a cash-on-cash calculation. Take you cash flow (rent - ALL EXPENSES - payment (if any)) for a year and divide by total cash invested. For real estate, I want that number up aroung 20%+. RE is a risky investment and a lot of work, so you want a good return. Note, however, that if you have only a small amount of cash in the deal, this number may be huge and not very meaningful.
Buy at a steep discount. Find a farm area, and get to know it in and out. Find out what nice houses in that area sell for, and buy at a steep discount (30%+, maybe more like 50% in Indiana.) If a house needs work, subtract off the cost of the work AFTER discounting the retail price.
You won't find those deals on the MLS or from someone who's offering "turnkey" investments. It will take work to find those deals. But once you get started, and build a reputation, it will get easier.
If you can buy houses for $50K that rent for $1000/month, you'll meet these criteria. I believe you'll be able to find deals like this in IN. Subtract 50% for rent, leaving NOI of $500. If you're buying lots of houses, you'll have to do commercial loans. Say 7% for 20 years, and probably only a fixed rate for 3-5 years. Payment with those terms would be $388, leaving you with $112 cash flow. If you put down 20% plus closing costs, you'll get $190 a month in cash flow and have about $11000 investing. That's a 20.7% return,
If instead you pay cash and have about $51000, you'll get cash flow of $500/month. Thats a ROI of 11.7%. But much less risk.
With a cool million, you could buy 91 houses with loans or 19 in cash. With leverage, your cash flow is $207K a year while with paying cash your cash flow is $118K a year. With leverage you could use your cash flow to buy 18 more houses in the next year. All cash, you can buy two more in the next year.
Assuming you're buying at a 30% discount, the retail value of those houses is $71,400. With leverage, your total equity in the houses is $2.86 million. With cash, its $1.4 million.
All that does include you paying for a property manager.
Realistically, you're probably not going to buy 100 houses. So, you'll end up buying apartements or other multi-units, or maybe commercial properties (retail, offices, industrial, etc.)
Learn the business before you do anything. There are lots of people out there who will be glad to separate you from that cash. Either with flat out scams, or with mediocre deals. Take anything you hear from anyone who stands to make money from you with a grain of salt. With work, you'll find good people to work with. Just watch out for ones thare aren't, or are just looking to make a buck from you.
Find a good lawyer and a good CPA that really, really know real estate.
Go buy and read a dozen different books on real estate investing.
