Is Rental Market in Oakland (Bay Area) Saturated?

[Grace Esteban]

I talked to a rep from Apartments.com this morning. He told me the sobering reality according to their analytics. Do any Bay Area landlords want to chime in? I want to get a PM for my property but looking at the websites of the PMs it looks like they have a lot of inventory so I'm doing my own postings. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

How do you maintain a positive business outlook nowadays? Asking for a friend :)

[Brian Garlington]

It's worked out great. I advertise on GoSection 8 and always get a ton of responses from people. It is usually pretty much a "Seller's Market" when advertising on that website. Interestingly about 20% of the people that respond, do NOT have a Section 8 Voucher and some have offered to pay MORE than what I'm asking. 

Somehow the best qualified candidate that I ultimately rent to ends up being a tenant with a Section 8 Voucher at the price that I advertised with originally. 

The key is screen, screen, screen and there are countless forums on here that I've contibuted to that explains what I do to screen.

From the time I advertise, screen, show, offer the place, collect the first month's rent as a deposit and the time Oakland Housing Authority or Contra Costa Housing Authority comes and does their inspection usually takes about a month. Last time was literally just 3 months ago and even with Covid it actually took less than a month.

I use the same process in Cleveland in conjunction with the PMs I use there. I still have some cash tenants in Cleveland, but not here in the Bay Area. No way I would have anything but Section 8 here in the Bay Area. Too many laws favoring tenants out here, and this was BEFORE Covid. I don't know why anyone would do anything different out here.....actually I do know why some people won't rent to Section 8 tenants even in the bay area, but that's a whole "nother" topic that I won't get into.