https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Tenants who rent property get something tangible in exchange for their cash - exclusive use of the property.
Just because the word "rent" is common to both, doesn't mean they are connected in any way.
The concept of "landlords do nothing while collecting passive income, therefore not creating any value but instead are just exploiting that they own the land" would be correctly described as "rent-seeking behavior".
From this, we can conclude that there must be some point after an investment is made where continuing to benefit from it transitions to rent-seeking behavior.
Would rebuilding the apartment every so often straighten you back to profit-seeking?
Rent-seeking is just a meaningless insult if framed like that, it highlights no economically net-negative behaviour.
I guess you could class some rent as predatory as well, allowing others to use your property for a fee is not necessarily predatory (unless you're of "property is theft" kind).
Criticising landlords is fine, but words (and phrases) have actual meanings, and the term "rent seeking" has literally no place in a discussion about landlords.
> the term "rent seeking" has literally no place in a discussion about landlords
Having "literally no place" is certainly a strong choice of words, particularity as it was introduced in this thread as being a inaccurate label to apply to landlords.
Personally, I first learned about the term applying it to Feudalism, in which the (land)lords' only contribution was their ownership of the land. That example alone seems to pretty handily disprove your claim of "literally no place", in fact it's specifically cited in the Wikipedia article as the Georgist interpretation of economic rent.
They're orthogonal. In a competitive market, landlords earn no economic rent. In a market with supply restrictions, however, landlords will earn a return "in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production" [1].
This is almost never true. Leases come with a million stipulations, and they get to decide what you can and cannot do. It’s exclusive in the sense that the landlord can’t force other tenants on the place you’re renting.