I live in northern california and had a section 8 tenant in a low income, rough area. the tenant was a single mom with 3 kids. she was there for a year. she didn’t call that often, but every time she did, she gave me intense headaches. most of the time, she would yell and scream about something not working. then she would not allow me to go there fix it, rejecting any workable time I would propose. another time, she had her uncle (a pretty rough looking guy) follow me and curse me everywhere while I was doing the maintenance work in the house. her uncle was making physical threats for obviously no rational reason.
in the end, I draw a conclusion that these people have the mentality implanted in their heads that landlords are someone they can and should abuse upon. they practically believe their landlords are their personal slaves. it is unfortunate the government is paying them so they can torture their landlords for fun, and dealing drugs as a side job.
Posted by Kcarlstr on September 13, 2010 at 13:51:48:
I am currently in escrow on a investment property with a tenant already in place that is under a 6 month lease. I was forwarded a copy of the current lease agreement from the seller and everything looked great but when I went to do the home inspection and met the tenant it was discovered that he was under Section 8. Should I be concerned with this? Is there anything that I need to do in order to keep this tentant?
Posted by Kristine-CA on September 13, 2010 at 19:48:05:
All Section-8 related docs: lease, inspection results, etc. should have
been made part of the escrow. You shouldn’t be finding out from the
tenant. Hopefully your seller isn’t hiding anything and this was just
lack of experience, etc. With more experience, you’ll be making sure
that’s disclosed to you on future purchase agreements.
Poverty and lack of education are the problems that most S8 landlords
complain about. Those problems are not specific to S8. Of course
there is a correlation with the concentration of S8 and less desirable
neigbhorhoods, but that’s totally regional and depends on the RE
market and available housing. I live in a town where S8 pays over
$2500 for a 3 BDR. There is limited housing. Finding S8 housing here
has to do with landlord willingness as the there is very, very little for
rent.
I work in one particular rurul desert town and have had many
experiences with holder tenants, none of which were S8. Really low
rents and no jobs. The squalor was, sometimes unbelievable. I’m from
rural Michigan and thought I’d seen poverty and lack of education. No
sirree. Section 8 wasn’t part of the formula. Just no jobs, no money,
and lack of education.
Section 8 can be a pain or a blessing. Just depends on your housing
market and the way the local housing authority is run.
As far as I know all section 8 leases are 1 year.You may have gotten the owners lease with the tenant now ask for the section 8 lease which was signed by owner,tenant and office staff from section 8
There is absolutely nothing wrong with section 8 tenants. I really like these tenants. For some reason, people get the idea that section 8 tenants are horrible. Any tenant can be horrible, especially if the property is located in a bad area. But section 8 tenants usually stay way longer since the government is paying their rent. Plus, in some states, section 8 tenants get kicked out of the program if they miss rent. So most of them do not want to be kicked out of the program. You do need to contact the county office that handles section 8 so you can get all the information on the tenant.
Posted by Dave T on September 14, 2010 at 12:21:11:
I have had one tenant for the past 13 years. Another S8 tenant on the program for four years reached a point where her income grew too large to remain eligible for S8. This tenant is still with me.
Over the years, my experience with S8 tenants is mostly positive. My mainstream tenants have caused more damage and cost me more money in the long run than my S8 tenants.
In my area of the country, the first year of S8 occupancy is on a one year lease. Lease renewals can be shorter, even month to month.
The county housing authority also inspects your property annually and may require certain repairs for health and safety reasons. In one instance where there was damage due to tenant abuse, the housing authority made the tenant repay the cost of the repairs. They even helped the tenant work out an installment payment plan which they also monitored.
Posted by michaela-CA on September 13, 2010 at 17:17:15:
it very much depends on the area.
had a conversation with my property manager today and she told me how much handholding she has to do with some of her section 8 tenants in the past: She told me about 1 tenant, who had been there for a year and who requested to have her carpet cleaned - turns out she didn’t even have a vacuum and didn’t know enough to vacuum the carpet every so often.
The property mgr also had a conversation last week with a landlord, who’s giving up on section 8, because they just keep tearing everything up and then require the owner to fix it again. My mgr confirmed that that has been her experience as well. It also echos what I’ve heard from intown Atlanta section 8 landlords in the past years.
Section 8 is working differently in different parts of the country and there’s not one way for everyone.
