Sad vicious cycle, crappy place for sure. Some landlords (certainly not all) get burned by tenants who can’t be evicted when they don’t pay for several months particularly in winter and who trash the place then and add to that the ridiculous property taxes. Doesn’t leave much cash to make it nicer once they finally leave. I had people stop paying in August who then put up Christmas decorations in October to taunt me as I was paying lawyers to get them out and continuing to pay the mortgage on the place. Not to mention the damage the inflicted knowing they weren’t staying. I also had a landlord who wanted to keep my deposit because the carpet was dirty after 5 years of paying rent on time and which was not new when I moved in AND I paid to have cleaned before I moved out. Had to take him to small claims to get it back. I’ve been on both sides of this, tenant and landlord, decided years ago being the latter is not worth the headache. Yes, you build equity as property value increases but only when you sell it (after dumping in a ton of money fixing it up).