There has been a growing trend in the last ~10 years for large international REITs (Real Estate Income Trusts - basically corporations purpose-built to own rent

There has been a growing trend in the last ~10 years for large international REITs (Real Estate Income Trusts - basically corporations purpose-built to own rental housing) to buy up housing in cities where they see an opportunity for arbitrage. These are billion-dollar companies that can buy dozens of buildings at a time. So while before the rental housing busioness was much more decentralized and more locally owned (with exceptions obviously), now we're seeing big organized international corporate operations coming in and buying up stock and optimizing operations to maximize profits to the maximum extent of local laws, and running things arm's length and without any real thought to the fact that these are people's homes, and probably shouldn't be treated with "maximum efficiency". Popular tactics such as "renovictions" are used to get rid of rent-protected legacy tenants, and a (literal) fresh coat of paint is applied to old buildings to then rent at "market rates" which just means the maximum the market can bear.