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Like any other investment renting can be a money making tool. It just takes time make that money and is not a get rich quick process. If you watch late night TV you will hear a lot about those things and the cash flow schemes. Pay not attention to those! They are riskier than you think. Here is the simple reason why, you have to find someone to rent it from you and but what happens if you don't? Someone still has to pay the mortgage for the maintenance bills.
The idea behind having a rental property is bad at all, after all you need to find a tenant and they will pay your monthly property bills. Every month the rent check comes some of it is goes straight to you. What you need to be careful is to manage your own personal finances. Make sure you are not going over board with the number of rentals (that is called being leveraged too much) if some how you can't rent your property.
You will need to have enough cash on hand to pay those bills until you find a tenant. Even at that your rent may not always cover all the bills so you will have to put money in to pay all the bills associated with managing a rental property. In rental speak you are not cash flow positive yet. A reasonable guide to get to cash flow positive scenario (that is you won't put money out of pocket) is about 3-5 years after you have had a rental.
Rule of Thumb
It may take from 3-5 years to become cash flow positive on a rental property.
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