Section 8 Processing Delays

[Michael Weis]

We have approved our first Section 8 tenant for one of our units, but the processing time for the housing office is insane. The prospective tenant told us it will take the office up to 30 days just to get the landlord packet together for us. I really want to proceed with this tenant, but that just seems like an undue burden to keep the unit open until all that has taken place. We haven't signed a lease yet. We still have other applicants we could screen in the meantime, and a steady stream of calls from other people who still want to see the apartment. Since there's no lease, should we let the prospective tenant know that the only way we can keep the apartment available for her is to sign a lease and provide the full deposit pending the approval of the Section 8 office? Or should we just tell her that we we are going to continue to take applications and hope that the apartment is still available for her when Section 8 gets their act together? If we do the latter, we could potentially have a paying renter in much sooner. If we do the former, we run the risk of having the unit vacant for much longer than we would like.