Not just commercial real estate: in most cities I&#x27;ve lived in (including SF), a handful of large conglomerates own a big fraction of rental real estate, too.<p>In my experience, these landlords are amongst the most scummy to deal with -- unresponsive, inflexible and unrelenting on rent increases. They&#x27;ll take months to fix anything, but damned if they won&#x27;t raise your rent by the maximum legal amount at every opportunity, and there&#x27;s very little room for negotiation. Given a choice between losing a good tenant and maybe getting more rent, they&#x27;ll choose the latter. It&#x27;s like having Comcast control your living situation.<p>The corporatization of our residential real estate market is just one more step toward the future predicted by Terry Gilliam in Brazil.