Since the OP is really looking for informed opinions, let’s move the from GQ to IMHO.
samclem Moderator
I can speak to this from the other side of the fence. For about 5 years my family and I participated with the Section 8 Housing Program. Had it not been for Section 8, it’s likely my children and I would have been homeless. That said…
What I haven’t read here is that Section 8 has pretty stringent yearly inspections of the home. My dealings with them (in two states) has been that they’re pretty picky. If the house doesn’t pass inspection, then they don’t pay the rent. They inspect EVERYTHING–window screens, ceiling lights, water faucets, everything.
The quality of tenants may vary. When I lived in Oklahoma and decided to move to another state, my landlord (who had several Section 8 properties) nearly cried when I told him I was moving. Why? We took good care of the place, called him when something needed repaired and paid our portion of the rent on time every month. (Because I worked, we had a co-payment which reflected our income. Not everyone has a co-payment.) When I moved to the new state (Section 8 Vouchers used to transfer from one district to another), I found a place which did accept Section 8. We lived there for quite awhile and when I graduated from college and got a job in which I was making enough money to support myself and kids, I worked it out with my landlord that I would gladly remain a tenant if I could pay the monthly total he was receiving from Section 8. He gladly complied because we were such good tenants. We were there for a bit over 10 years total.
Our neighbors (who were Section 8 and rented from the same landlord) were spawned from the bowels of hell. Her rotating boyfriends liked to hang out on the front porch and smoke pot (every single one of them–must have been a qualification for them) and they would frequently engage in knock-down-drag-out brawls that usually involved the police hauling off one or the other.
I would say that before you rent from a Section 8 tenant, you do a credit check (understanding that it’s likely their credit will be crap–chances are good that they’ll have a history of crappy credit, but at least you’ll be able to see what’s going on) and an employment check. If they’re not employed, or have a history of employment, or going to school, then discount them. (My neighbor never worked the entire time she lived next door. From what I recall, being employed is NOT a condition of Section 8 housing.) Although technically Section 8 has a restriction on who can live in the household, I’d include a clause that any criminal activity (including domestic assault) is grounds for eviction. Ditto with ex-cons showing up and staying for awhile.
I am VERY grateful for the landlords I had who accepted Section 8, and for the Section 8 program, but I saw a lot of people abusing it. I never once took it for granted and always was appreciative, however, I knew it was a temporary situation and used it to get me to a better place in life. I was also always very grateful to have a roof over my head, and took care of where I was living like I owned it. Not everyone does that, Section 8 or not.
Do NOT rent to my sister the entitlement queen. She totally destroys her homes. If she doesn’t feel like spending her cigarette money on diapers, the kids will poop on the carpet. Of course, she doesn’t feel like cleaning it up and after the carpet starts crunching when its walked on, she will just rip it up and throw it away.
When the landlords complain about how trashy the outside looks, she will move and then totally destroy the inside. I’m talking major damage here, walls and doors kicked in, appliances ruined (she once asked me for a bag of used catfood to run through the dryer…I refused), light fixtures pulled out of the walls, etc.
The best/worse time was when her love of her life for that week tossed gasoline in the fireplace because her gas had been shut off for non-payment and he wanted to make a roaring fire. :smack:
She got moved into a motel room and the poor landlord had to not only deal with a burned down house, she also expected the landlord to sort out her belongings that didn’t get ruined, clean them, store them and then deliver them to her when she got a new place. When that didn’t happen, she made a BIG fuss to the housing authorities.
She’s worked maybe 6 months in her entire life.
I’d suggest that you check employment, credit and rental histories. Many people use public assistance for a hand up. Its the ones who expect to get handouts (they are entitled, afterall) who will make your life a nightmare.
For the record, when I left California, my own mother got ticked off at me because I refused to rent my home to my sister until I could sell it. I KNEW that if I let my sister sleep there just one night, there would be no selling it ever. I rented it to someone on welfare who was waiting for HUD to kick in and she took such good care of the place that my selling agent found my tenant a new place in another property he was trying to sell. That’s my only rental story.
If you do rent to Section 8, make sure they pay their own utilities. Otherwise you get people who crank up the heat and open the windows in January and ignore dripping faucets and running toilets.
A lot of good advice in this thread. I think the bottom line is that a Section 8 tenant is going to be riskier than your average private renter. You can argue about to what degree 'til you’re blue in the face. Thus, you need to screen very, very carefully and also include some special clauses in the lease per some of the suggestions in this thread. The Landlord Protection Agency has a pretty interesting website (also has a small forums section).
I have heard this a lot. I don’t think I would ever rent to Section 8 tenants in any property with mid-range or higher fixtures and decor.
I concur with the consensus of this thread.
I know many people in the slumlord business. These people very much like Section 8 (or “HUD”) tenants. But that’s because the houses they are dealing with are already slums. They would not take a nice apartment and rent it to Section 8 tenants.
If you have a house that’s already in shabby condition, then the advantage of regular rent payments outweigh the additional damage to the house. Especially since anyone who is likely to want to live in such a house to begin with is likely to be of the Section 8 type anyway. But if you have a nicer house, and could get a more stable and non-violent person, and have more to lose if the place is trashed, then you’re better off staying away.
BTW, in case you do go that route, one thing to try to make sure of is to stay away from drug dealers. I was recently in a conversation with two slumlords, and they both agreed that drug dealers are the worst of the worst. One guy said he would much rather have a guy with a murder conviction than a drug dealer, and the other guy agreed with that.
shrug We’re not slum lords. . .we have nice houses in good neighborhoods (nothing fancy or anything, but good, family neighborhoods). The Section 8 inspections are actually nice, because sometimes there are things that we over look when preparing a house for tenants and they point it out for us to fix. Last thing that comes to mind is a screen on the side of the house, which we had completely not even noticed, that had a hole in it and needed to be fixed.
Sure, we’ve had section 8 tenants trash a house. We’ve also had white collar people with clean backgrounds punch holes in the walls of the houses, steal appliances, literally piss all over the carpets (ok, it might have been pets), etc. etc… It goes both ways. Section 8 or not, you have to screen, screen, screen- which is something we’ve gotten much better about over the years.
I’m not sure what the shrug is about, but in any event I wasn’t talking about you. As I said, I was talking about many people I know in the slumlord business.
Everything you say is technically true.
Also, sometimes it’s cloudy and doesn’t rain and sometimes it’s not cloudy and does. Still, you are better advised to bring an umbrella if it’s cloudy.
Used … food … 
you mean, like poop? Poop is used food, technically …
How does a slumlord renting out shabby apartments pass all of those inspections?
I have a friend that started renting his duplex to Section 8 (because it was hard to find renters in his area, I think was his reasoning) and he said it sucked because she constantly complained and he had to do a lot of fix-up. Or something like that. And he wasn’t trying to rent out a “slum” just a duplex in the suburbs.
Sounds sort of contradictory to me that being a landlord for Section 8 is both hard (lots of inspections!) and easy (put them in you worst properties!)
What up?
Three ways:
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A lot of the requirements for inspections are highly technical, and you could have an apartment that will be shabby but technically pass and vice versa.
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A lot of the inspectors are paid off, either as a quid pro quo or in the form of “presents” and tokens of appreciation over the course of a year.
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Even without payoffs, not all the inspectors are so letter-of-the-law.
This is true and not contradictory. For the right type of landlord - i.e. a guy who knows the ins and outs of being a slumlord - and the right type of apartment - i.e. a slum - it’s a lucrative business. For a guy who is not cut out for this type of business or doesn’t know the ropes, it can be a disaster.
The following is not about Section 8, but relates to landlord/tenant laws in general, but is illustrative of the general phenomenon.
When I was a kid, my grandparents owned an apartment house in a bad neighborhood. They had originally bought it when it was a lower middle class neighborhood (and I think they lived in it themselves at the time), but the neighborhood turned and they still had it. Another thing that had changed on them was the tenant laws, which had become more protective of tenants over the years.
And my grandparents were not cut out for it. They were not professional landlords - they were a couple of old people who made a living from owning a small store, but they had saved up and bought this building and were stuck with it. I don’t remember all the details - my father was constantly getting involved - but one conversation I had with my grandmother sticks in my mind. I had asked her about the building and she said “we got a great new super - if he comes to fix something and no one answers the door, he just busts through the door and fixes it”. I couldn’t understand why this was an advantage in a super. So she explained. The law was that if something was broken and the landlord doesn’t fix it, the tenant didn’t have to pay rent. So the tenants would break small things around the apartment and complain to the super, but always be out of the apartment when he came to fix it. This new super, with his bust-through-the-door approach, was the man for the job.
After a lot of aggravation, my grandparents eventually sold the place. And the guy they sold it too was not a well-meaning guy trying to play it straight, as they were. No, it was a professional slumlord type, a very tough guy who was reputed to have mob connections. I’m not completely sure of this, but per my recollection after that point the building deteriorated a lot, as this guy played the game in the way he knew how.
Sorry for the rambling here, but my point is that you can make a go of it in different situations, but you have to know what you’re doing. Having the wrong mindset for the situation is the problem.
[It also goes to show that well-meaning government regulations sometimes have unintended consequences, but that’s perhaps off topic.]
One slumlord I know was telling me about a fellow slumlord he knows. This guy began in the business trying to play it straight. When he had to make a repair, he would use high quality material and workmanship etc., because he believed quality is worthwhile. But he soon wised up to the fact that no matter what he did, his tenants would destroy the place anyway, so it wasn’t worthwhile in that circumstance. And so it goes.
Yeah, I came in here expecting to hear that someone was renting to Max Klinger.
AIUI, some of these inspections tend to be a little more “flexible” if there is a need for Section 8 housing in a given area, or the problems don’t affect the overall habitability of the unit and aren’t worth fixing until they break. (For example, if the thermostat in the oven isn’t precise, it’s not a big deal until the oven conks out entirely, if it ever does.)
CSB time:
Some years back, my mother bought some apartment buildings from the local university with the intention of renting them out to students. The university asked her to rent an apartment to a family who was part of some sort of exchange program, and the university would guarantee the rent. My mother agreed to this. Getting the rent every month wasn’t a big deal, but when the family moved out the following summer, the place was destroyed. The children had colored all over the walls, the stove looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in who knows how long, and the kitchen walls were the color of cooking grease. Most of the apartment had gorgeous hardwood flooring that looked like someone had roller-skated all over it; it had to be stripped, sanded, and refinished. Fortunately, my mother was able to get reimbursed for the cost of renovation and repair, which was in the thousands of dollars when all was said and done, and IIRC, the university was so grateful that they paid for all of it, no questions asked. Going forward, my mother refused to rent to people whose rent was paid by a parent or some third party, and put this in the lease. The tenant had to pay the rent to her directly because she had far fewer problem tenants than those whose Mommy and Daddy or whoever wrote the check every month.