Finallly Feel the Pain of Section 8 Inspections

[Tariq B.]

Hello All!

I write this post to hopefully give someone the strength to not give up and keep on going, even if you fail sometimes it's not the end you just need to look on the bright side of things and keep on pushing. Failing an inspection may not be a huge deal to some people but to me it is a huge deal because I do all the work myself, when a property fails, I feel as if I have failed. This post can be applied to all aspects of getting shot down and getting back up on your feet. Even if it helps just one person, then writing this was worth my time.

In my time as an investor I always run into people who solely will not do section 8 or stopped doing section 8 not because of the tenants, but because of the dreaded inspections. I always felt that was quite a silly reason not to take up the advantages of the program, until recently.

At the beginning of working with the program I had no problems passing, passed the first time every time. Lately however, I have failed 2 initials and 1 annual. It really started to grind on me. Failing an annual in my opinion is not nearly as bad as failing an initial, reason being is TIME. Some places do it different but in Baltimore you have to get the inspection done AFTER you have found a tenant not before and to boot it takes about two weeks for the inspector to come out once the voucher is turned in. For example: I had my future tenant turn in her voucher on the 22nd of June, I called up to see when they had scheduled it, they kicked back "looks like the inspection will be on July 8th".....uhhhh what??? Thankfully, I pressed on them and they magically appeared to pull an open date out of thing air, so they moved it to June 28th...much better. However, If you so happen to fail the inspection, it is again most likely going to be another two weeks. So as you can see that is over a whole months rent you may have had if you had not gone the section 8 route having to jump through the loops of the inspections. So I get where people can get frustrated.

Failing for things that are dangerous in nature I understand, but when there are things on the list like needs to replace toilet seat....needs to paint exterior door two different shades....needs to install CO detector on second floor (which there was) cut grass in back yard (he was referring to the grass outside my property line...) Bathroom door drags when opening (the wood expanded due to the heat)...I can again understand the frustration.

But I like to look on the bright side of things, and while the inspection process can be a PITA I do find that with every inspection I add more and more things to keep and eye on to pass the next one. 

Also I have found that the re-inspections are a joke. They only come in to look at the stuff they got you for in the initial, in and out in less then 3 minutes and some of the things they do not even check. I wonder sometimes if they write down petty stuff just so they have another inspection to come and get paid for.

Needless to say I did just pass the re-inspection, granted my scheduled time was from 9am to 11am the inspector did not show up to 11:47am which added salt to the wound but was subsided with the news of passing. 

Putting all the negativity aside (as I try to stay positive) I find that there can be pros to the inspections. It keeps me on my toes, it doesn't let me slip as far as standards go. I not only have to please a tenant I also have to please an inspector who knows some of the codes more or less. It keeps my values in check and helps me stay on track of not turning into a slum lord, because after doing a few of these low income proprieties I can see how it is a very easy pit to fall into. Why the inspections are annoying sometimes they are challenging and I never turn down a good challenge.

So the moral of this story is, that even if you are feeling down and at the moment you may feel like you have failed, you need to keep your head up and keep pressing on. No matter what happens in life there is always a positive to pull from a negative situation.

Now to wait for the housing authority to tell me what they are going to give me for rent!

Tariq