Section 8 is Federal program which is administered at the LOCAL level. A lot of the pros/cons will be determined by your local office. I have had Section 8 tenants in 5 different locales.
One was fantastic. She hammered through the inspection and re-inspection in record time. Another was an absolutely corrupt disaster. I would NEVER do another Section 8 deal in that city unless the entire department turned over. The other 2 were in the middle.
Pros are that the rent WILL get paid. The government pays like clockwork. And the tenants have an incentive to pay. if not, they can lose their benefits. They also have that same incentive not to be terrible tenants (eviction can mean losing benefits).
The cons are that you have to deal with the government. Annual inspections that I have found to be picayune. The repairs were never super costly. But they weren't free. And for the initial move in, they took time. I have found that it's often 30 days from you approving the tenant to the tenant moving in. One time I had a local agency who did not pay at move in OR the next move in. They did eventually catch up and then everything was on time. But it took 2 months.
There also are local rent maximums based on the location, number of bedrooms etc. So make sure to ask what that is or you may not be able to get the rent that you want.
For the tenants, you need to maintain/up your due diligence. They could not afford the unit on their own so the quality of tenant can be more suspect than usual.
Hope this helps,
