Hard to sympathize with the landlord class too much on this one. Everyone knows how depreciation schedule works and gets in to it in no small part because of that deduction benefit + the hopes that via 1031 exchanges etc they can delay it until death.

> Everyone knows how depreciation schedule works

Everyone is way too strong a word. Unlike a regular job, there is no course or qualification needed to become a landlord. In the Bay Area I know lots of people in tech who bought a house, couldn’t afford mortgage payments (perhaps after a layoff) and decided to rent out parts of their house. Or perhaps just a particularly smooth talking real estate convinced someone to sell their stocks and buy investment property.

You might say that not knowing about all housing related costs upfront is evidence of financial illiteracy. You might also say not knowing about depreciation before buying a house is also evidence of financial illiteracy. You might even say committing to a mortgage payment while your own job prospects disappear is evidence of bad risk management. But in real life many people make bad financial decisions, landlords included. Landlords do not inherently have more financial aptitude.