@Jon Goehring I know since you are doing your research you will do better than we did. Our first renter on our first SFR investment was a section 8 tenant and I could not have imagined how much damage one family could do. Also, the tenant was required to pay a small portion of the rent and the deposit. Getting that money was a lengthy process(months), but they finally got it all to us. We had to keep every bit of the deposit after they left.
@Shea Spinelli We screened our section 8 tenant, came with nice recommendations. Maybe people were just trying to pass off a headache to someone else. The Housing Authority required us to make quite a few alterations to the property, some pretty weird ones that had to be undone to rent to non-section 8 tenants. After inspection we were given a very short amount of time to make further changes. I highly recommend not waiting for the annual inspection. If I had it to do over again I would be inside the property every few weeks. Scratch that, I just wouldn't rent to section 8 again. Too many regulations that are all on the side of the tenant, not the property owner. And the damage was absolutely not worth the slightly higher than market rent we received. We had to replace all the flooring, repair damage from a small fire in the bedroom that we were never told about. Screens were destroyed or completely gone, windows broken. We had to repaint the interior, replace destroyed closet doors and bedroom doors and door frames. And the roaches!!! They ruin everything!
