A landlord is partially rent-seeking. Yes they provide the service of making sure the apartment is habitable (cough) and so on, but they charge above market price for that. How do I know? I know because I'd do it myself for cheaper if that was an option, but it's not an option because landlords own all the spare apartments. (Why don't I buy one then? They're very expensive because I have to price-match the landlords, who are paying very high prices for the right to rent-seek!)

The market for real estate is basically the market for taxi medallions. It costs something to run a taxi, but there are a limited number of medallions and you can charge well over that cost because you have a medallion, which also makes the medallions very expensive. Until Uber comes along. But you can't just make an illegal apartment without land the same way you can make an illegal taxi without a medallion.

> Despite paying rent for an apartment, it’s not rent-seeking. You get a place to live out of it that wouldn’t exist without the owner renting it to you.

> Rent-seeking is a very specific economic term where a party inserts themselves into a transaction and takes a cut without providing anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

> Being a landlord comes with significant responsibilities and even principal investment risk.

Economist here. Yes, this was a correct use of the term "rent-seeking behavior". It's actually quite funny to see someone try to argue otherwise, when the name was chosen because this is, literally, the textbook example.