Ah, I guess it's a reasonable disclaimer: I live in cities, in flats, and prefer it strongly — I think that's also cultural, though I also think it makes for better cities, though I realize there's a bit of controversy here (and, also, it depends on having a good public transport/pedestrian/cycling infrastructure). I currently rent from a guy who rents out an entire building, and around here it's pretty common (but not so much to make single-flat landlords unlikely to encounter).

What this means is, renting out is at least a side-business to someone, and they usually either at least somewhat care for customer experience (YMMV, of course), and either do a lot themselves, or hire people to help along if they don't.

On the other hand, while in Poland renting is common, it's treated as temporary, and most landlords only have a single place that they treat as a side income, or just a way to keep the cost of having an empty flat "for later" down. That makes the entire experience way worse — for example, contacting them is essentially an emergency measure. OTOH, they usually care less about what you do to the flat (so, they're more likely to be okay with drilling holes or painting walls into odd colors — if you rent serially, you may have only a week or less between tenants, if you just kick people out and move in yourself you probably take a full redo into account).

Hmm. You're right. Likely most the properties i'm coming across are as part of one-off side projects.