Right now in many places we're in a bit of an inversion where you can rent for less than the cost to buy - because some owners have old properties with low mortgage rates, etc.

But the main deal is people are still in "appreciation mode" where they don't really care if on paper they're losing money, because the house is appreciating faster than that.

Once appreciation slows or dries up (or prices start going back down) then things will get suddenly interesting.

We pay whatever they can get away with charging or increasing it to, and often have the standard utilities rolled into the number, which generally seems favorable. I pay rent, insurance, and Internet, rhe rest is rolled into to a max 2% increase per year. If they tried something excessive we'd start looking elsewhere.