@Michael Oliver, as others noted, the jurisdiction running the program can make it either worthwhile or a major pain.
It has been years since I had my last Section 8 tenant, but when I first started investing it was all I did for my SFRs. Cincinnati wasn't too bad to work with, but certainly slows things down on the front end, and creates recurring work that isn't present on market rate tenants.
Not sure what advice you are looking for.
Things to think about: I would plan on likely a 30-60 day delay in getting your first month's rent check from Section 8. Cincinnati would only process payments twice per month, and often times they would have lost my payment form with canceled check, or at time it had to be mailed in so took longer than expected, etc. I always got paid, but took some time on front end. This only impacted the CMHA portion, and didn't keep me from collecting rent from tenant.
Annual reinspections are a PITA. This is the biggest impact I encountered. Each year the inspector would go through and inspect house. I would then get a list of repairs I had to make at my cost, which were clearly tenant issues. I.e. I had no cracked outlet covers upon initial inspection (if I did, Section 8 wouldn't approve the lease). At the anniversary, they inspect comes in and finds 5 cracked outlet covers. Clearly, I (the landlord) did not crack them, the tenant did. But this was a "LL Responsibility" repair. This is a small example, but it adds up. I got hit with partial repaints because tenant had posters that got pulled down and cracked paint (no chipping paint allowed). All told, I would consistently have 1k-3k of repairs each year. If it was market rate, these may have happened, but I don't have to fix tenant issues every year, and I can bill tenant on move out for major items.
Second inconvenience: my section 8 tenants always paid their portion with cash or money order. This was frustrating, because it made me go to the bank. Versus my market tenants that either paid electronically or with a standard check that mobile deposit recognizes. Not end of world, but not ideal
Lastly, meet your tenants and do a full screening as you would any tenant. I self manage, so I would meet the potential tenant. I would note if they showed up on time, if they were communicative if running late, what questions they asked, etc. Basically, I would run criminal record checks, but didn't run credit checks (I, rightfully or wrong, assumed they all had bad credit). They had to fill out applications. I called their prior landlords (after confirming names through auditor records). Generally, I didn't have any major tenant problems, and I believe a lot of this is due to being selective with the tenants, as I would a market rate tenant too.
