Are they better than the mega-corps buying up thousands of houses, sure. Are they still taking one of the basic necessities for life and commidfying it? Also yes. You can use whataboutism all you want and maybe it helps you sleep at night but that doesn't change what you're doing.

I also love to hear landlords complain about how hard their "jobs" are and how tenants are so difficult. News flash: nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you rent out a house. If it's so much work why don't you sell the house, put the money into some structured investments and work all the hours you'd work on the property at a real job? Is it because it's not actually all that much work? Is that why you say it's a good retirement supplement? Or was it because your daddy was a landlord, and his daddy was a landlord and dammit being a landlord runs in your veins? Gee, I wonder if we ever came up with a term for a family landlord business? Maybe we can come up with something really regal to describe them?

You do realize that there are other ways to invest, bonds, shares, ETFs, etc.

In my opinion if you earn average or above average for the city you live in you should be able to afford a roof over your head easily which is not anymore the case for a lot of places.