I wonder if in this hypothetical "no renting" scenario we'd see complete home maintenance service companies take their place. It would be an improvement - you can fire them without moving, but I don't think we could expect them to be any less exploitative than landlords are now.

>Experts refer to Vienna’s Gemeindebauten as “social housing,” a phrase that captures how the city’s public housing and other limited-profit housing are a widely shared social benefit: The Gemeindebauten welcome the middle class, not just the poor. In Vienna, a whopping 80 percent of residents qualify for public housing, and once you have a contract, it never expires, even if you get richer. Housing experts believe that this approach leads to greater economic diversity within public housing — and better outcomes for the people living in it.

[1] https://archive.is/P2Vad

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-ho...

[1] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-elections-berlin-...

but only 0.5 million out of an almost 2 million population do live in public housing, and it takes several years before you can get such a place.