This is completely untrue.

The Mom and Pop owners have less resources to handle if you suddenly break your lease and leave due to crumbing conditions so it’s in their best interest to keep their properties updated.

Corporations often will ignore your complaints, and then just absorb the costs for a couple months until they can move in someone else into the same broken property. Corporations do not care when it comes to their properties, while individual owners do care because there are actual people behind them.

Also, regardless if “renting is the right choice for some people”, the housing shortage is due to corporations buying up single family homes with the express purpose of renting them, which pushes potential owners out of the market entirely.

Not when they are essentially a cabal :/ https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent

Just a single data point but as soon as a corporation bought my apartment complex they "attempted" to illegally increase my rent through hidden fee increases. They also "accidentally" sent me the wrong leases with the rents increased multiple times.

If I need to sue a corporation for something like this, it's going to be a lot of time and effort for me but nothing for them so they can essentially get away with the illegality. Mom and pops it's a lot of time and effort for both of us so it's in both of our best interests to do things by the book.

Yes, renting is absolutely the right choice for some people. I completely agree. That is why I never said apartments shouldn't exist or that people couldn't own multiple homes to rent out. However, I think people who own multiple homes should be taxed higher on them.

Housing should not be a retirement vehicle. It should be a basic human right.

Also, I don't think it's true that corporations have to obey stronger laws than mom and pops. I'm pretty sure rental laws are just rental laws, and corporations just have lawyers who make sure they are following all applicable laws. I could be wrong, though.