Anyone renting to section 8 tenants in Indy?

[Noel R.]

Interested in understanding the section 8 tenant pool and your experience either managing or renting to sectionn 8 tenants. Are you able to get higher rent with section 8? Have you found tenants keep good care of your property and stay longer? Is section 8 a viable option for Indianapolis? Feel free to DM if you are willing to connect and dicuss in more detail.

[Harvey Levin]

@Noel R. I have been leasing to Section 8 tenants since 1985 as a landlord investor. HUD has asked me to speak at the 1st symposium in Indy on Dec 5 as our 3rd party management company has been the number 1 manager in Indiana of Section 8 houses since 2012 (according to HUD) with usually over 300 voucher holders in our portfolio at any time. There is a lot of paperwork and yes, there are annual inspections and lots of delays but a qualified PM can make it all worthwhile. We lease mostly C and B- areas to the voucher holders due to the amount rents approved and have found (if the property is maintained by the owner) that the tenants will stay longer than most in the C areas.

One thing to remember is that each Housing Authority operates differently and that does cause different experiences between different cities. As a representative of NARPM, I attended a meeting in Washington DC with HUD to discuss landlord issues and many cities have a lot of major issues that we do not have here in Indy. HUD is trying to make the Housing Authorities more landlord-friendly but local politics always come into play.