This is called a risk investment. The risk is that nobody rents the place, in which case the landlord would lose the property.
As a renter, you have the freedom to call out that bet, but it's quite probable that somebody else will rent instead of you. Also, if the markets are efficient, it's almost 100% that you're not getting a better deal anywhere else for your place of residence.
I was a landlord for a little while, renting 1 unit in a 2 unit house.
I could have afforded my mortgage and taxes without the tenant.
They couldn't have qualified for a mortgage, and couldn't afford to rent a place half as nice anywhere else in the city because I was charging about half of the market rate.
That's not the same as profiteering corporate landlords, no. But a one-size-fits-all solution isn't going to get people where they need to be either.
Everyone paints landlords as money grubbing evil people. I own a couple rental houses and set prices so that my return is 7% annually. While that may paint me as the description above realize this; that price was set when I set a tenant and only increases with inflation. The majority of my units are 25% below market rates because once I have a good tenant I don't see a reason to make more work for me. 7% return and I never hear from them is worth it in my mind.
Lemmy can be such a hateful place sometimes. Mom and Pop landlords such as yourself are not the problem. I would assume that most people renting from you are not in a situation where they can buy a house yet. Providing them a place at a reasonable price gives them the opportunity to save for a house of their own. I think just about everybody who has bought a house had to rent first, including myself, without available rentals what would we do?
Our individualistic culture makes people incapable of seeing the problem systemically, and instead they cry when they feel like a critique of the system feels like a personal assault of an individual's character.
It's not fucking about landlords 'being decent people', it's about a system that profits from the systemic disenfranchisement of the working class.
In the same way 'all cops are bastards' because the profession is built around protecting the capitalist class by oppressing the working class, 'all landlords are bastards' too.