Section 8 Housing

[Gray_Fox_86]

Bias against those on government assistance aside...

You should ask the current owner for the history of the current tenants, including their payment history and any damages accrued during their stay. That should give you a good idea about this investment of yours.

Despite popular opinion, I do believe that people should be treated on a case by case basis, and not with generalizations.

I do treat people based on case by case basis. And most section 8 tenants have not been good. It might be because we live in the Chicago area but I don't think so. Oh, and we wanted for the tenants to get out of our unit because we couldn't handle them anymore so we told any prospective landlord that they were good tenants in the hopes that that landlord would rent to them. One section 8 tenant cost us over $37,000 dollars in damages and the government payed us a total of $18000 in rent. So you do the math and because he got the insurance rate to go high up on us because he sued us because he "fell". Our insurance payment for the building went from $1,100 to $2000. And the worse part was that the government did not care about any damages that they were doing and that the insurance did not back you up. They ended up settling and giving him money before they went to court. And they were fraudsters big time, but did the government care? No. We gave them proof and nothing came from it. The insurance agent who went to see the holes knew that they were not possible for having caused any injury and that the holes were not caused by any water damage or anything but that he had made them with some tools. He hit the ground floor to cause holels and then pretended that he had fallen and hurt himself. It was a huge fiasco.

Being a landlord sucks just remember that many tenants view you as a slumlord though you may not be one and that the court system and government are all in the favor of the tenant because judges typically view you as slumlords as well.

 

[new coup for you]

I don't have any experience as a property owner but I have spent a lot of time living around section 8 and public housing.

they'll **** your property up. i mean beyond normal "party house" conditions- they will destroy it.

some of the **** I've seen in public housing is just unbelievable.

 

[Tucker Case]

I'm a contractor, and in every Section 8 apartment complex I've worked / done repairs on, I see an almost across the board complete lack of respect for the property. Unless your capable of doing your own major repairs, I'd be very careful...hiring me everytime a wall or door gets destroyed will get expensive.

Same experience here, doing the same type of work.

I would say that if one can do the repairs themself, the investment isn't all that bad, though.

In general, renters have less respect for the property than owners, for obvious reasons. But section 8 housing tends to be a lot worse than normal as well.

But a smart investor will always factor in projected repair costs when doing their projected profit calculations (regardless of it being section 8 or not, but the projected number should be a good deal higher for Section 8).

Obviously, not having to pay for labor is going to dramatically reduce repair costs and section 8 properties often tend to be cheap to purchase. If the purchase costs are not outweighed by the higher repair costs and time necessary to make repairs, and the rent income is similar (which is often the case), then section 8 can be a good investment.

One can make a good deal of money investing in section 8 if they are smart about it.

But it is a major headache.