It's like you are being purposely obtuse.

For you, a single landlord, perhaps you arent price gouging and seeing record profits, great you might be one of the good ones.

But when you look at big companies and realestate investment firms you see those enormous numbers in their PROFITS.

I don't need to know their operating costs, I dont need to know their revenue, all I need to know is that their profit it INCREASING!

If you charged someone $100 rent last year, your operating costs were $60, and you made $40 fine. Next year you charge $120 because your costs went up $80, your profit is still $40. Fine!

But if you charge $250 the next year just because you feel like it and your costs still only went up $20 to now $100, you just made $150 profit for no reason. You are now an asshole!

Good business means you are including in your costs savings for improvements and emergencies. If a company sees an up in their costs and then ups their prices their profit wouldn't increase it would remain steady. Instead we see massive leaps in profit and that should be unacceptable.