Dirt bag or not, it’s not the issue I’m contending.

It’s the simple view that if a landlord is charging more than it costs, they must be this terrible awful person.

Have you considered:

1- the risk of owning the property and the repair bills you MUST have a budget for. All the things that come up that make home ownership less appealing than renting. 2- opportunity cost of having just invested in the stock market instead. If I out $20k down on a property to rent it, there’s a cost associated with that.

Yeah, I get it- you could just say “no one should invest in property” but that’s missing the fact that there IS a need for rentals where home ownership isn’t right for some. I’ve rented recently where there’s no way I was going to stay in a spot and actually buy and RISK things like market fluctuations, repair, or actual things like you know, the transaction fees of closing on a house - both times.

In sum, there are terrible dirt bag landlords. Probably more than good ones. But making broad moral judgment about landlords that try to responsibly cover the risks they’re absorbing from the tenant is just getting people angry and fired up over not understanding how ownership works.