Vouchers and govt assistance

[Albert Pena]

Im a realtor and I like the idea of focusing on vouchers and govt assistance clients. (As long as they have high credit). The programs pay brokers more than a regular rental and there’s a huge market for it bc many realtors don’t like to work with vouchers.

I think landlords are stuck on this stereotype that if they have a voucher, they’re a bad tenant, which is not true! e.i. I have college students with vouchers and high credit scores.

Is there any other new york realtor here that agrees with me? (Or disagrees, id like to hear it all)

[Kevin Paulk]

@Albert Pena

Realtor & Investor here!

From a realtors lens it makes a lot of sense. Huge NYC market of section 8 applicants and the programs pay great. But from a landlords lens, a lot of the landlords I work with today. They've been around the block for awhile. So a lot of them have dealt with section 8 before and would never touch it again. Especially being here in NY. (A tenant friendly state). Here are a few reasons why Section 8 rubs a lot of landlords the wrong way here in NYC and will probably continue to.

Annual Property Inspections/ Too much red tape.

If you do fail the inspection, you will be given a list of items that need to be fixed. Once you fix all items on the list, you can schedule a re-inspection with the housing authority office. They will once again send the inspector to determine if all issues have been fixed.However, if you have problematic tenants or do not perform regular managerial inspections, an inspection from the housing authority might be very stressful and a nuisance. 

Property Damage Issues

Now these issues can come from non section 8 tenants as well but I have seen them higher with Section 8 tenants. Since the section 8 tenants are not paying much for the rental, they have less incentive to keep the property in great shape and every renovation eats at your cash flow.

More Work to Evict Difficult Tenants

In NYC its already a lengthy process to evict a tenant now add a Section 8 eviction in there, that means more work comes into play as you will need to send copies of documentation throughout the eviction process to your local housing authority office or case manager.

I just recently picked up a apt.listing from a landlord who spent 2yrs in the court system evicting a section 8 tenant. Tenant would damage the apt and go back and state that the landlord was not keeping up with the repairs and maintenance. 

Potential Federal Funding Costs

As long as we have budgets, there will be budget cuts. Now when they decide to cut is a coin flip.I don't have a crystal ball for that But we've seen budget cuts on housing from this administration already and there were recent talks this year before the pandemic. So section 8 landlords need to be extra prepared to switch gears in how they rent and what they rent the that time comes.

https://thecity.nyc/2020/02/tr...