I've invested in both. Don't expect rent to be a good income, but if the housing market is on the way up it might be a good asset.

We bought the house for living in, but moved cities after a few years. The market value has doubled in the last ten years for our house. Being a landlord sucks, but it's borrowed money that doubled its value while tenants cover the mortgage. That down payment would've turned into ~10x if we sold the house today. Still, it's hard to find and predict a market like that just for investing.

Be prepared to lawyer up when that rent doesn't get paid. Have enough saved up to repair/replace that boiler when it fails. I spent my two-week Christmas holiday painting walls and repairing/replacing all the things last year. I'd rather have things fixed as they break, but this tenant decided to save everything for handover day.

For ETFs I spread my funds over a dozen high-risk ones, I guess they perform on average some 15% YOY. If I math that right it's a 3.5x increase over the same ten years. I'd still consider it to be less risky.