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Comment by ilyt | Hacker News Reader

> But many landlords are just normal people with other jobs, where being a landlord is not a job to them, but an opportunity to earn money by renting. While one should be able to expect them to know the relevant laws, I bet that most of them don't care to bother because of the time and effort it takes.

...so ? They earn money for doing essentially nothing, the least they should do is to know the law.

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I fully agree with this.

But I just intended to point out that "they expect you, the tenant, to not understand your rights and the laws that enforce those rights" is not the only reason.

While I am no landlord, I have relatives who are and they don't care about the law. It's something you they will be made aware of when it arises and then dealt with accordingly.

Take the example of GP's post, he kindly did the research for his ex-landlord until he convinced him. His ex-landlord may now see himself confirmed in that his approach to not caring is the right one, until the ex-renter brings up a very valid point.

> Take the example of GP's post, he kindly did the research for his ex-landlord until he convinced him. His ex-landlord may now see himself confirmed in that his approach to not caring is the right one, until the ex-renter brings up a very valid point.

I HIGHLY doubt land-lord didn't knew the meaning of "security deposit" and didn't return it immediately "because he didn't knew the law", especially when he was clearly ignoring the former tenant. He most likely counted on people not bothering to get it back when being ignored

You are giving very charitable interpretation to someone who was clearly withholding the full security deposit for two months past the due in flagrant violation of the law and common sense. He didn't even fully comply with the law when it was shown to him. At two months past due, he would have been required to pay double for late payment, and the OP was generous in not enforcing the law to its full extent. Given the asymmetry between the number of instances where a renter and a landlord will need to engage in this transaction, it is hard to extend the same leeway to someone who does this transaction for multiple units that we might afford someone doing this for one unit. If anything I would suspect that the landlord in question is a repeat offender.

Spoken like somebody who has never rented out property, risked $$$$ on building something, or doing anything with a business. Please read up on how real estate businesses work.

It's really hard to be sympathetic considering how rent and housing prices have exploded over the last 20 years and how difficult that's made life and future prospects for the average person.

I would say the rewards extremely outweigh the risk.

That is a policy problem: we make it hard to build housing in the areas of high demand. There is nothing inherent in landlording that says a power differential needs to exist. The low-demand areas, renters have way more power.

About 0% of landlords risk their own money - it's from the bank.

The vast majority of rental properties in the US are owned by a single person. Mom-and-pop rental homes are exceedingly common in the US.

And they borrow money from the bank to own these rental properties.

...where is the risk ?

Only risk really, if you're getting mortgage to get apartment to rent is that prices go up but you can then just increase the rent. Aside from "tenant completely trashed my house", the risks are nonexistent, it's one of safest ways to invest your money.

Risks are nonexistent?

Sounds like you should try it out, then.

Tenants trash the place or don't pay IS a real risk. I have family who just lost 300k in damages and unpaid rent with bad tenants.

Similarly, value decline is another real risk. I have lost 200k in value on home I live in. If I needed to sell, I would be SOL, which is a low occurrence but serious risk.

Risk? Two words - eviction moratorium

> it's one of safest ways to invest your money

Are you a landlord? If not, why not, if you are convinced the risks are nonexistent and it's one of safest ways to invest your money?

Reality is that while risk is moderately low (but far from nonexistent), returns are also very low, so being a landlord isn't a particularly good investment. You're much better off in the stock market, at least up to the point where you have so much money that you start needing to diversify.

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