Managing ~3,000 single family home rentals is possible for a single small office assuming it’s all in a small geographical area. But the article mentions they are outsourcing the work to a third party.
The traditional process with estate agents and unreasonable private landlords is completely broken and extremely frustrating to deal with.
Because corporations with the cashflow of nation-states have routinely given better customer service in your experience?
Or does it sound simpler having only 3 choices to rent from in your city instead of 30? Because it does sound like a hell of a time-saver making it onto 30% of your city's "Do not rent to" list when you can do it by taking a single company to small-claims court over an issue they don't want to fix, when you have tenent protections laws on your side forcing them to.
They can "greatly improve the experience" when everything goes smoothly, but it's difficult to argue with a tag-team comprised of a computer database, and a different customer service agent for every call you make.
Most but not all big corps want nothing to do with being landlords in Chicago, though there are a lot of local corporations involved. My first apartment in Chicago was owned by the family that also owns the Blackhawks hockey team, and you had to call their front office with any problems. I’m sure that was fun for them - any phone call could be about some important hockey business, or maybe just a broken toilet.