OP, the fact that you genuinely seem a little insulted by the notion of landlords being predators, might suggest that maybe you're not the type of landlord these people are talking about. That said, no one is pulling these opinions from thin air either. There's LOTS of shitty landlords who just look to collect money from their tenants and eschew spending whenever humanly possible. Some of these landlords are truly "up against it" like you state, and have expensive to maintain properties and need to charge that much, while many many others do not have the expenses you state you have, and just collect what the market will bear without investing that money back into the property. I do think you were being kind of a jerk when you suggested that anyone who thought landlords might be greedy is a communist by addressing them as comrade in your reply, but as I noted earlier, I suppose you were a bit insulted.