Where I'm from (The Netherlands) they have corporations, not individual people from whom you rent. I think this was created somewhere after world war 2. In the old inner cities there might still be a "landlord" or two left of buildings that are in private hands but everything else is pretty much owned by a co-ops, they can own entire suburbs.
Rent is devised through a point system and therefore everyone who lives in similar housing pays the same rent (more or less, I think it also has to do with how long you've been living there).
Over here in Australia the rent is based on pretty much two things; a) the mortgage of the landlord and b) what they can get away with. Not to mention the 6 month "inspections" you'll submitted to, you know, just because.
Renting in Australia seems to have a lot of emotion involved in it. If something is broken in the house it can take ages to get fixed. Not all landlord are created equal and it's very difficult to police hundred of thousands of individuals, so they get away with it. Real-estate agents are pretty much glorified banks and there mostly the serve the landlords, I mean, it's more difficult to get a landlord on your books than it is to find a tenant. I.e. path of least resistance.
Disclaimer; I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 10 years so they might have f'd up the system just as well. In that scenario, it "was" a pretty good system.
Yeah, Europe isn't the Netherlands. In Germany, at least, there are corporate landlords, both for-profit and cooperative, but everywhere I've lived has been a building with five to ten apartments owned by one old rich person (sometimes managed by a property-management company, which tends to work out better since they're more professional and you don't have to deal with the possibly unpleasant/scammy landlord).
I don't know about Europe in general. Here in Switzerland the majority of landlords are pension funds, which are constrained investment companies with a social obligation. As such, they normally own upwards of 1000 apartments/houses at a time. They price their properties according to market but they cannot adjust beyond certain thresholds because the risk ratio would exceed what they're allowed to have.
