Most of the people I come across with the most wealth did it largely through real estate.

I live in an area here in Colorado where property prices have pretty much universally doubled in the last 15 years (some much more than that, but we will go conservative and say doubled).

So say in 2005 you bought a rental property for $250,000. That property now is $500,000. Say you put 20% down so you had to have capital worth $50,000. During the 15 years you hired a property management company to handle your rental so you really don't put a lot of work into it (some, but not much). Your rents over those 15 years far exceed your mortgage payment (especially now when a $500,000 house would go for roughly $3,000 a month here). So during those 15 years you are making money and now after 15 years you have paid your mortgage off.

So again what happened? You spent $50,000 and after 15 years you have turned that $50,000 into an asset worth $500,000. The stock market has been good, but very few people have made 10 times their money in the last 15 years (If for example you put your money in an S&P fund you would have doubled your money). On top of that you have definitely earned additional money. The P&I on a $200k mortgage for 15 years is $1381 a month. Add in taxes and insurance at the beginning and you were paying about $1581 a month and receiving very close to that. But by the end you are clearing over $1,000 a month even after increased taxes and insurance.

So moving forward you can either cash out and take your $500,000 (minus those darn realtor fees) or have an asset that is paying you $2500 a month net.
Many people did this with 3 or 4 houses (or more) and no longer need to work anymore.

Now obviously with any investment there is risk. 2008-2009 caused lots of areas to steeply decrease in value and now with Covid today many are not collecting rent. That being said the benefits are potentially enormous. I will say that as more and more people have decided to do this the margins get less and less (although I presented a very conservative model, I know many who bought 12 plexes and are netting thousands of dollars every month before they pay off the mortgage). There is no guarantee real estate will continue to increase like it has. But to say that there are not benefits to renting as opposed to putting money into capital markets is just silly.