Because now they are draining income from tenants without providing services. Landlords don’t work, but get money, not just from thin air, but from the people who live in those places. To pay enough for the landlord and the property manager it requires more money than just a property manager. Not to mention landlords have no one stopping them from just increasing rent if the laws don’t stop them and they raise it with other landlords (which is happened right now). What are people going to do? Move? To another place that’s just as expensive? Plus moving is expensive by itself.

I see what you are trying to say, but its missing huge chunks of what’s happening in actuality.

That’s a property manager, not a landlord. Property managers work to manage the properties, landlords just own stuff and get paid to tell property managers to do it all for them.