SECTION EIGHT-DON'T HESITATE----

[Steve T.]

RUN!!

It has been a while since I have been active on this forum- and the main reason is SECTION EIGHT!

Let me explain.  I have 17 units of mostly affordable housing for moderate to lower costs renters which I turned over to a management company.  They convinced me to accept sect8, for  all of the usual reasons. One of the absolute worst decisions of my life.

These tenants completely destroyed most of my units, doing thousands of dollars of damage to most, constant maintenance issues, constant trouble with the neighbors and police, and a lifetimes worth of headaches and problems for me. 

They all, each and every one, had entitlement issues, were ultra-disrespectful to management and maintenance workers, and tried to get away with whatever they could. It quickly went from bad to worse to god-awful, with the last part of a year getting them out and recovering my properties. 24 months of my life were spent cleaning up this mess I never should have gotten in the first place.

government beauracracy 

[Marc Winter]

@Steve T., wow, what are the odds of each and every tenant being a wrecking ball?  

We manage hundreds of doors in NEPA.  About 20% have a section 8 portable voucher.  Our experience has been it's not Section 8 tenants per se, it's just tenants, period.  Most are OK to good, 10--20% are management headaches--and those are not necessarily Sec 8 tenants.

Screening is ALWAYS the key issue in accepting any tenant, subsidized or not.  Add to that required interim property inspections, inside and out.  With photos and written reports.  

Lastly, we have a clause in our leases pertaining to violent crime, drug activity, police-involved domestic incidents and the like, shall be sufficient cause to subject the tenant to eviction.  (If they are Sec 8 and get evicted, odds are they will lose their subsidy.)

It is understandable how you feel about your experience, and I am NOT advocating for Sec 8.  There's good and bad in every crowd.  

However, I'd look at the practices of the management company that managed to bat 1,000 on approving a bunch of losers and let them go to town unchecked on your rentals. As managers, we should pay attention and when a tenant is going sideways alert the owner and take steps to stop the slide.

Just my 2 cents.