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Comment by em-bee | Hacker News Reader

renting from a big company is way preferable to having a landlord who is renting you their only property and is picky about every little thing you do to their house.

the big business only cares about getting their rent in time. if there is something damaged, the maintenance department takes care of it. at least in germany responsibilities and rights are regulated by law, and the businesses know what they can and can't do. a small landlord takes every issue personal, and you have to negotiate.

i don't live in the same city as my parents, and i'd have no use for any property i would inherit from them.

so yeah, your future is my preferred reality.

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My (also anecdotal) experience has been the complete opposite. Any time I've rented from a large company (or have spoken about this to people who do) I have dealt with frequent rent increases, lack of responsiveness to issues, and many other problems.

> if there is something damaged, the maintenance department takes care of it.

In 3 weeks. At 11:15 AM. On a workday that you have an important meeting at 11:30 AM and cannot miss. Oh, you need a different date? Well, how about in 2 months at 11pm on a Sunday? Of course, we won't be able to actually do any of the work that late because of noise issues, so you'll need to schedule a follow-up maintenance appointment. (I'm only roughly paraphrasing what happened to a friend when their dishwasher broke.)

On the other hand, renting from a private landlord who's renting out their old home or similar has been much more fruitful for me. Perhaps it's because I spent the time to vet the landlord a little bit as well.

There are good management companies, and there are bad ones. There are good private landlords, and there are bad ones. Companies, and more specifically the people at those companies, also take things personally.

> if there is something damaged, the maintenance department takes care of it.

I saw some of these properties (Progress Residential) and the properties were not maintained in the slightest. These were move in ready propeties that haven't had an ounce of cleaning or maintenance.

They'll take your rent, ignore your maintenance beyond the required minimum and evict you if you don't pay.

i was talking about germany, you are talking about the US. the US has weak protection for renters, and that's why something like this is allowed to happen. the "required minimum" is quite different in germany, so this is very unlikely to happen in there, because renters would have the right to reduce the rent they pay until such issues are resolved. as i said, laws to protect renters are a necessary part to avoid this.

Well, most of us are talking about the US because the article is about US renters, not German ones. And the reality of renting in the US would treat your opinion fairly unkindly if you were to apply it here.

obviously. what i am trying to show is that it can be different, and that the problem is not renting or big companies, but lack of legal protection for renters. fix that, and many problems will go away.

A lot of the news I see related to Canadas property issues is related to pension funds owning a large amount of property so using their size to constantly rotate tenants then increasing prices for new tenants.

rotate tenants? looks like another case for weak renter protection. in germany you can't terminate a renters contract unless you evict them. time limited rent contracts are only allowed if the property is not available for rent after the time limit ends.

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