Version without parentheses:
Route::get('/read', function(){
$user = User::findOrFail(1);
echo $user->address->name; // <- this line
});
Version with parentheses:
Route::get('/delete', function(){
$user = User::findOrFail(1);
$user->address()->delete();
});
The difference is that the first one:
$user->address->name;
returns an eloquent instance so you can get the properties out of it, and the second:
$user->address()->delete();
returns a Query Builder
instance on which you can perform SQL queries as you already do, so it will delete the row from the database.