I have many times, it has almost always been much preferable to my experiences with small landlords. The micromanaging of apartments, corner cutting when it comes to maintenance efforts, bizarre unenforceable stipulations in rental agreements, discrimination and more -- I've seen some of each of these problems in my time renting from both large and small landlords, but the small landlords were almost always worse. Less capital and less experience is part of why I'm guessing. For me, I don't care about my landlord knowing my name if my apartment is managed competently and within local legal guidelines.