[DominikR]

This is not a matter of what you feel or believe, it isn't rent-seeking by definition, period.

Rent-seeking is everything where you extract value by not being productive in the sense of creating new wealth.

Building a house is damn expensive and creates a lot of new wealth, while maintaining a house preserves the wealth you created before.

[daemin]

It is not something that I feel or believe, it is factual. I know this because I am both a renter and a landlord. I inherited a property which I am now renting out, and except for a few major fixes, I have left the property pretty much as is while collecting quite a bit in rent from the occupiers.

In the same vein I could just purchase a property and rent it out, in doing so I have not created it - it already existed - but now I am just extracting value from it. Same as the bank will do to me with the mortgage.