Investing in a property that's 70% Section 8 Housing

[Alex Rosen]

Hi Everyone, 

I'm looking at investing alongside some family members in a rather large deal in PA. The property is 100+ units and 70% of the property is designated as section 8 housing. The property currently has an in-house management team of 3 full-time people that have agreed to stay on for the new owner. 

Does anyone have any experience investing in section 8 housing that can shed some light on how these properties perform? If anyone had any of these properties during the 2008 recession, did tenants continue paying rent? 

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

[Tj Hines]

@Alex Rosen, the good thing about section 8, is you can count on the government putting that guaranteed rent payment in your account every month without fail. The knock is, usually the quality of tenants you have to take on. I'm not saying that all section 8 tenants aren't quality prospects, but statistics say otherwise. Is it worth the extra $200 bucks a month to take on non-desirable tenants? What you also have to think about that can potentially diminish the extra $200 is the maintenance cost usually go through the roof, because statistics say they don't take care of the property. Where is the property located? Is it in the path of progress? Is it gentrifying? Is the neighborhood a war zone?  Just some things for you to think about