Should You Rent to Someone with Section 8? Yes! I EXCLUSIVELY Choose Section 8 Tenants These Days.
/I had a Youtube fan tell me she wishes she could find a landlord where she lives who would accept a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8 Voucher). I said, “Well, I’ll make you a video you can send when you do applications.” So here it is!
Myth #1 — They Trash Your House
This one just bugs me. People that say this, declare it as though they are the experts. Whenever I ask them if they visited their tenant’s prior residence before moving them in, was that house trashed? “What? I never went to see how they lived before they moved into my house.” WELL THEN! No big shock. I’ve made a couple of videos about this subject.
This next video is my more current shorter version of how I do what I call home visits:
Myth #2: Difficult Inspections
…Said the slumlord.
We don’t find their inspections to be all that difficult really. We know what things they look for and we have them done. Section 8 wants health and safety issues taken care of. The challenges are usually the tenant-caused damages that we have to fix in order to pass the inspection. But those items can be billed back to the tenant and sent in as lease violations to their caseworker. The inspections have gone from yearly now to every other year, so not terrible. The rest of these benefits outweigh that.
Here is a video I forced my husband to do. He wasn’t happy with me putting a camera in his face, but he knows how to pass a Section 8 inspection. And the inspectors really respect him too.
9 Benefits of Renting to Section 8 Tenants
#9. No need to do the Detroit city certification process.
I love this one in Detroit! We just email the city our passed Section 8 inspection report and the city mails us back a Certificate of Occupancy. This saves us from getting the $500 lead paint test and the $160 city inspection and all the city’s repairs that come along with it. Check out my other blogs about how to do this.
#8 Landlord Incentive Plans
I haven’t gotten to take advantage of this because I sold my property management company so I’m really only placing tenants. But once the tenant moves and if that tenant caused significant damage, there are some grant programs out there that landlords can access that are meant to incentivize landlords to not give up on Section 8 tenants. When someone applies, ask them for their caseworker’s name. Email the Section 8 caseworker and ask if they have any incentive programs.
#7. Income Verification Done For Us
Section 8 is able to figure out exactly the tenant’s income to determine how much money is 30% of that income. That 30% is the portion the tenant has to pay to us. If the tenant’s income changes, so does the Section 8 portion. We don’t have to figure out their income and hope we’re somewhat close.
#6. We can get higher rent from Section 8 participants
This isn’t true in every city, but in Detroit, the HUD maximum limit is significantly higher than the market rental amounts. I can push my rent to be somewhere between the market rent that cash paying tenants are paying to close to the HUD FMR (Fair Market Rent). Go on the HUD website and check out your own county to see how much rent Section 8 is allowed to go up to. You can’t go above it. If you go right up to that amount, you have to prove that other houses are actually renting for that price too.
#5. Large Pool of Applicants
Most landlords historically shy away from renting to people with Section 8. When my ads state I love Section 8 or Section 8 Only, I get a LOT of applications. Lately, it’s not as many as in the past though because the Detroit courts have added 3-4 months onto their eviction times so a lot of us are seeking Section 8 only applicants.
#4 Verified Landlord Reference
If you ask for the applicant’s caseworker’s email address, you can request a landlord reference from the applicant’s previous landlord. HUD requires the Section 8 offices to give that to us. Nice!
#3. They Tend to Stay Longer
From my own experience and that of other landlords who rent to people on Section 8, they just stay longer. They don’t have that much money to be able to move is probably why.
#2. We Can Tattle on Them
Every lease violation is up for grabs for us to forward that along to their caseworker. Voucher holders do not want lease violations, and especially not anything leading up to an eviction, on their record. It plays against them and they could lose their voucher. If a bailiff has to remove them from the house, they do lose their voucher. If you’ve ever been through a full eviction and had to have that expense of having a bailiff clean out your house, you know how expensive that is. If you have to evict a Section 8 tenant, it is very unlikely that tenant will stick it out until a bailiff hauls them away.
#1. Reliable Cash Flow
It’s a beautiful thing every month knowing I will receive a set deposit directly into my bank account like clockwork.