Rent at your own Risk in San Francisco

Paradise of Millionaire Slumlords

@Image Credit: Amogh Manjunath

Moving is exciting…except if you rent in San Francisco. There are too many slumlords and they seem to legally get away with some awful behavior.

I visited a house for lease where the current “tenant” had never moved in: he lost his job a day after signing the lease and could no longer afford the rent. The landlord would not let him out of the lease and he’d already paid 2 months rent (13k!) from his credit card when I met him, despite not even living there. The landlord still had his 14k deposit on top of saying he owed him for 12 months. He was so desperate to get out of the lease and begging people to lease it. He was even painting the house and making all kinds of fixes himself in the hopes to attract more interest. I looked up his landlord and found him to be a successful lawyer with multiple income properties. Crazy!

Why are landlords able to get away with doing almost whatever they want to tenants?

So now I’m moving out at the end of the month and my rental agreement says if I break my lease, I need to pay rent until the place is re-leased, same as the above but not to exceed the amount of my deposit of 10k, which is 1.5 months of…