Because:

> Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions without creating new wealth. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)

Given that renting out property you own doesn't meet this definition it can categorically not be called rent seeking. I'm always shocked that people apply this definition exclusively to property rentals, and not VHS rentals, without seeing the hypocrisy.

"Rent" has a few specific meanings in economics, but charging a tenant rent isn't necessarily economic rent. The economic rent is more like the difference between your actual monthly rent and some hypothetical idealized market-clearing monthly rent.

That's not the basis for the term.