Question regarding section 8 denying my rental increase

[Abed Sara]

Hello,

I purchased my first rental 3 unit home in which the tenants is paying 700 per month with the help of section 8 housing. The previous landlords kept rent the same for the past 15 years or so. The tenants renewal is coming up which I filled out a section 8 rental increase form requesting to raise the rent to $1000 per month which is below fair market rent in that general area.

The section 8 request was denied stating they can only approve a 50 dollar increase. What are my options given the increase to 750 per month leaves me about 300-400 below fair market rent. Is there another argument I can use given the rent hasn’t been raised in some year. Thank you in advance.

Abed Sara

[Abed Sara]

@Jennifer Donley @Kyle J. I would like to thank you two in providing feedback. my issue with section 8 was they would reply and then not follow up for weeks until I followed up again. It seems like they expected the problem to go away if they ignore rent increase requests. I ended up emailing the director and president of the company and made my statement for the increase and the fact that my meeting request was denied because of COVID. I explained it’s not a good reason especially when there are other options such as a conference call. I ended up receiving a conference call after some persistence and my rent was increased a total of 660 dollars between three units which I’m satisfied with to get me back on track with regular rental increases yearly. Thank you again for your help.