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I'm so extremely grateful that I accepted section 8 tenants into my rental units. Most of these tenants have nearly all of their payment covered by the governme

I'm so extremely grateful that I accepted section 8 tenants into my rental units. Most of these tenants have nearly all of their payment covered by the government and they just have to pay $100 or $200 on top of that to cover what the government won't. These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. Mine are great. They keep the units spotless, mow the lawn for me on my multi unit properties. When I have a tenant like this, I never raise their rent, and if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care.

hanoz 6y ago
I don't suppose the struggling non state supported private renters whom you outbid to buy these houses, which they might otherwise have been able to afford to buy themselves, but who are now paying rent to some other landlord instead, are quite so enamored with your altruistic enterprise.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  I actually lived in this multi unit property when I first bought it. My wife and I were newly married and buying a multi unit property qualified us for a 3.5% down payment which was much more management than >=10%. Also, I live in a rural part of America where property values are relatively stable because there's so much room to build. There are ample new homes available and new homes cost about $100 per sq ft. Existing homes are unable to rise above this except for extreme circumstances.
- amiga_500 6y ago
  You said something negative about landlords. You can really see from the rash of landlords on this post why hacker news is hugely pro landlord.
the-dude 6y ago
Is this in Soviet US?
dmarlow 6y ago
> if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my properties decided to lie about certain issues (like claiming a shampoo bottle lodged down one of the toilets was there for years). When I decided to not renew the lease with that tenant, they decided to cause considerable damage to our property. Sometimes, when things come easy to people, they don't appreciate it. Holding people accountable helps them lift themselves up too.
- cr__ 6y ago
  Do you have any evidence that they did this because the government assisted them with their housing payments?
  - dmarlow 6y ago
    No, but the point was to ensure people pay what they're expected to pay. Not to give them a handout.
    - ohyeshedid 6y ago
      That's on OP to decide for themselves, though, not you.
    - bsanr2 6y ago
      What counts as a handout these days? A tech job that pays $50k-$100k over productivity? ("The company has been losing money since its founding, but we need a rockstar engineer so we can survive long enough to get bought by Facebook.") I'm not sure we have any idea of the real value of things these days, including what work is worth. Credit has distorted the system; just because someone who is work full-time (however many jobs that takes) can't pay the rent rate the market seems to be dictating doesn't mean someone stepping in to fill the gap is giving them a "handout".
      - marcusverus 6y ago
        That is actually the literal definition of a handout.
thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
you have to be careful. I've noticed Section 8 neighborhoods tend to attract a lot of Crime.
- dx87 6y ago
  That was my experience as well. There's Section 8 housing near the entrance to Fort Meade in Maryland, and the base commander put those neighborhoods off limits to all military personnel stationed there because of the high levels of violent crime.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Attract crime? Section 8 neighborhoods are like gated communities for poor people except instead of gates they have excessive police presence, few opportunities, overpriced essential goods, poor access to banking but usually several check cashing shops and payday lenders, minimum wage jobs or worse, bad schools. Section 8 neighborhoods are a dumping ground for the people and families society deems undeserving.
  - prawn 6y ago
    Are there many efforts in the US to spread subsidised housing out through a broader community to avoid this? I think the idea is that everyone learns something from someone else (empathy, community spirit, leading by example with behaviour, etc).
    - coryrc 6y ago
      Yes, and it's led to increasing crime in working-class neighborhoods, because section-8 doesn't cover enough for rent in expensive areas. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/04/fresh-data-public-housing-relocation-and-crime/1698/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/04/fresh-data-public-hou...
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    Society pays for housing, health care, schooling, Pre-K, pre-pre-k, food, phone/internet, and more for folks in section 8 neighborhoods. They aren't being abandoned, they are being supported by society at considerable expense, at a higher standard of living than the average human being--in return for nothing. Meanwhile the average worker pays 30+% of their income in federal, state and local taxes--basically working unpaid from Jan 1st through Mar 31st--and they are supposed to believe that the poor are the victims? Yikes!
ipython 6y ago
Bless you for taking a chance on the less fortunate. It sounds like you treat your tenants like people and they in turn repay you in something way more valuable than money: their time and kindness.
pengaru 6y ago
> These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. You're ignoring the potential effects on property value.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > You're ignoring the potential effects on property value. Bingo. Surprised nobody else brought this up. Not to mention the neighboring home/property owners are going to be pissed off because it's a potential drag on their property value. Though the stigma against section 8 may not even be warranted. I wonder whether there are any studies on the effects of section 8 on communities.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    One of the few things our government (UK) has got right with housing is to ensure nearly every development includes social housing.
    - throwaway0890 6y ago
      It's not perfect though as you get ridiculous situations like social housing in modern apartment blocks in the middle of London that no average worker could afford. Or separate entrances for the social housing flats and regular flats in the same building (regular as in how it was intended to be built, not with extra walls to create extra rooms or with no living rooms at all). Or with social housing residents being asked to pay separately for communal areas maintenance (because the government doesn't pay for that but you can't really stop people from walking on the grass) that they didn't ask for.
      - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        Nothing is perfect but it's a long way forward from complete segregation.
jedberg 6y ago
I love my section 8 tenants. Same here, they take good care of the place and the government doesn't miss rent payments. Some counties even provide free legal help for landlords if their section 8 tenants do something bad. It's actually pretty low risk. The main downside is the increased overhead of paperwork and inspections. The government wants to (rightly) make sure you aren't a slumlord so they do a lot more inspections.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  Interesting. I'm actually a bit separated from it because I pay someone ~8% of my rents to manage the place, I wasn't aware of any extra inspections or hassle so I guess I'm getting my money's worth.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    I think it depends the city/county. You may not be getting any extra inspections.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I converted all my units to luxury units, and have had far far fewer tenant problems after the renovations and rate increases. High paid tenants seldom miss payment - I've setup automatic EFT withdrawal from their accounts, so I don't even need to process checks, and they aren't really impacted by the rise in unemployment right now - most just work from home. I think the bitter spot for being a landlord (especially now) is to manage low-mid income units. ...it's just a constant stream of problems - people moving in and out - single mom's that chronically cannot afford the rent - unregistered tenants - people that refuse to pay and refuse to move out - drug and police raids... like it was a total total nightmare. Managing 12 low-mid income apartments was a full-time nightmare. Managing 12 high income lux units now takes about 4 hours every other weekend and is usually a pleasure to do.
  - taylodl 6y ago
    My wife discovered the same thing. You either want to manage section 8 housing or you want higher-income housing. Once you know the system and the case workers it's easy to deal with bad section 8 tenants. It takes a while to learn the ropes, though. The higher-end tenants are generally easy to work with as you mention. The problem now is that's where all the property managers are wanting to go!
asjw 6y ago
I guess being good sometimes pay I own an apartment in Rome that I rent because I don't live there anymore. It's rented to a Bengali family that nobody wanted as tenants because they're immigrants and such (you can guess the reasoning behind it) They used to bring the grocery home to my mother, so I gladly accepted to rent my house to them when they asked They've been the best tenants I've ever had and due to covid they found themselves in the position of being one of the few local shops still open in the neighborhood, so their business didn't suffer much from the lockdown. Many in Italy stopped paying the rent for 2-3 months as of now, but they always paid in time and in full, I asked them if they needed a cut on the rent to save some money, due to the bad situation, but they refused the offer. So I'm installing air conditioning at my expenses in exchange It's good when things go smoothly despites the odds
- ngngngng 6y ago
  Someone must be cutting onions in here. What a great story.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Thank you for being a decent human. Is racism more prevalent in Italy ?
  - asjw 6y ago
    Thanks for the kind words! I just did what it felt right I'm inclined to say that racism in Italy is different from the general notion of it: I mean, there are certainly racists in Italy, no point in denying that, especially towards some ethnicities (Africans, middle Eastern and South Americans in particular, they are considered too loud and unreliable - coming from us it's really something - and often also worse than that) but Italians are mainly suspicious of what they don't know (yet) until they know them, like we still live in small state cities, surrounded by walls, that don't trust each other. But it's mostly a trust thing: still people from the north usually don't trust people from the south and vice versa. In Rome I've seen many times that Romans prefer Romans like them, just because it makes them feel safer. Until they realize they really don't like each other. Think of it as "the evil you know". I must also say that they are often wrong and that there is a good chunk of the population who really doesn't care where you come from and just loves being with others.
jungletime 6y ago
You're very lucky. Rented to a single mother with two teenage sons. The teenage sons that decided to strip down living trees of their branches, to make bonfires for parties in the backyard. Two trees are severely damaged, and anything that was burnable in the landscape is burnt. I don't even know how to go about pricing out the damage. Insurance is paying for their rent, because the last house they lived in burned down. Sent her a strongly worded email. She promised not to make more bonfires. But I was there this week, and more branches where hacked off, and one tree is almost hacked of its bark 60% around. Can't sleep at night, getting anxiety that they will burn the place down. They're to move out before the end of the month.
- ponker 6y ago
  Are you that worse off if they burn it down? You won’t have to worry about them resisting eviction and you’ll get an insurance payment.
  - sytelus 6y ago
    Typically insurance payment doesn't cover everything. You will almost always be at some loss, often much greater than year worth of rent. Also, I'd suspect your future premium rates would rise given insurance companies will see increased risk due to your history of getting bad tenants.
  - tengbretson 6y ago
    Insurance payments being equal, I don't think it needs to be said that not wanting your things to be set on fire is a reasonable ask.
    - ponker 6y ago
      Problem tenants are different levels of problem in different jurisdictions. In San Francisco, I can imagine a landlord being perfectly happy to eat the distress of a tenant burning down their property, given that in the same stroke they solved the problem of their occupancy of the property.
- 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
blackswan101 6y ago
I am also in the process of converting my units to section 8.
conanbatt 6y ago
Your tenant is the government though. Thats often pretty sweet if you can get it.
miked85 6y ago
I doubt that communities adjacent to you were nearly as grateful.
yardie 6y ago
I lived in a building with a few section 8 tenants. Most were disabled, some elderly, and others young single mothers. I only found out we had any at all because the property manager mentioned it to me. It was primarily a building of young professionals and grad students. She told me management love them. Government always pays the rent on time. They still had to pass a background check so that locked out a lot of the assumptions.
hackerbrother 6y ago
You should waive their fees for the duration of Corona, and refund any ones you've received! Just saying, it would be a great way to do some good, and they might get a lot more out of the 100/200 than you would!
reshyith 6y ago
I am very thankful to hear you have had a good experience with your Section 8 tenants. As a HUD-VASH veteran recipient in Los Angeles, I have hoped to discover that there are reasons to expand programs for more low-income people in the United States. I am EXTREMELY fortunate as a veteran to receive housing assistance. Thanks for making it possible for people in need to have a safe and affordable option! Blessings!
roenxi 6y ago
There is a real problem with the situation though. And I want to distinguish between the decision you've made, which are savvy, and the broader picture where this showcases some of the more unfortunate elements of socialism. It is a terrible outcome if millions of Americans are about to go broke and the relative winners are people who (a) totally rely on government handouts and (b) rely on people who are totally reliant on government handouts. This story points to a situation where a rational person would rather be involved in ventures that produce less resources than they consume. That will really start to hurt the absolute measures of prosperity if it persists for long.
perfunctory 6y ago
what a nice government subsidy you have there.

hanoz 6y ago

I don't suppose the struggling non state supported private renters whom you outbid to buy these houses, which they might otherwise have been able to afford to buy themselves, but who are now paying rent to some other landlord instead, are quite so enamored with your altruistic enterprise.

ngngngng 6y ago
I actually lived in this multi unit property when I first bought it. My wife and I were newly married and buying a multi unit property qualified us for a 3.5% down payment which was much more management than >=10%. Also, I live in a rural part of America where property values are relatively stable because there's so much room to build. There are ample new homes available and new homes cost about $100 per sq ft. Existing homes are unable to rise above this except for extreme circumstances.
amiga_500 6y ago
You said something negative about landlords. You can really see from the rash of landlords on this post why hacker news is hugely pro landlord.

the-dude 6y ago

Is this in Soviet US?

dmarlow 6y ago

> if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my properties decided to lie about certain issues (like claiming a shampoo bottle lodged down one of the toilets was there for years). When I decided to not renew the lease with that tenant, they decided to cause considerable damage to our property. Sometimes, when things come easy to people, they don't appreciate it. Holding people accountable helps them lift themselves up too.

cr__ 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that they did this because the government assisted them with their housing payments?
- dmarlow 6y ago
  No, but the point was to ensure people pay what they're expected to pay. Not to give them a handout.
  - ohyeshedid 6y ago
    That's on OP to decide for themselves, though, not you.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    What counts as a handout these days? A tech job that pays $50k-$100k over productivity? ("The company has been losing money since its founding, but we need a rockstar engineer so we can survive long enough to get bought by Facebook.") I'm not sure we have any idea of the real value of things these days, including what work is worth. Credit has distorted the system; just because someone who is work full-time (however many jobs that takes) can't pay the rent rate the market seems to be dictating doesn't mean someone stepping in to fill the gap is giving them a "handout".
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      That is actually the literal definition of a handout.

thorwasdfasdf 6y ago

you have to be careful. I've noticed Section 8 neighborhoods tend to attract a lot of Crime.

dx87 6y ago
That was my experience as well. There's Section 8 housing near the entrance to Fort Meade in Maryland, and the base commander put those neighborhoods off limits to all military personnel stationed there because of the high levels of violent crime.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Attract crime? Section 8 neighborhoods are like gated communities for poor people except instead of gates they have excessive police presence, few opportunities, overpriced essential goods, poor access to banking but usually several check cashing shops and payday lenders, minimum wage jobs or worse, bad schools. Section 8 neighborhoods are a dumping ground for the people and families society deems undeserving.
- prawn 6y ago
  Are there many efforts in the US to spread subsidised housing out through a broader community to avoid this? I think the idea is that everyone learns something from someone else (empathy, community spirit, leading by example with behaviour, etc).
  - coryrc 6y ago
    Yes, and it's led to increasing crime in working-class neighborhoods, because section-8 doesn't cover enough for rent in expensive areas. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/04/fresh-data-public-housing-relocation-and-crime/1698/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/04/fresh-data-public-hou...
- marcusverus 6y ago
  Society pays for housing, health care, schooling, Pre-K, pre-pre-k, food, phone/internet, and more for folks in section 8 neighborhoods. They aren't being abandoned, they are being supported by society at considerable expense, at a higher standard of living than the average human being--in return for nothing. Meanwhile the average worker pays 30+% of their income in federal, state and local taxes--basically working unpaid from Jan 1st through Mar 31st--and they are supposed to believe that the poor are the victims? Yikes!

ipython 6y ago

Bless you for taking a chance on the less fortunate. It sounds like you treat your tenants like people and they in turn repay you in something way more valuable than money: their time and kindness.

pengaru 6y ago

> These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. You're ignoring the potential effects on property value.

dntbnmpls 6y ago
> You're ignoring the potential effects on property value. Bingo. Surprised nobody else brought this up. Not to mention the neighboring home/property owners are going to be pissed off because it's a potential drag on their property value. Though the stigma against section 8 may not even be warranted. I wonder whether there are any studies on the effects of section 8 on communities.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  One of the few things our government (UK) has got right with housing is to ensure nearly every development includes social housing.
  - throwaway0890 6y ago
    It's not perfect though as you get ridiculous situations like social housing in modern apartment blocks in the middle of London that no average worker could afford. Or separate entrances for the social housing flats and regular flats in the same building (regular as in how it was intended to be built, not with extra walls to create extra rooms or with no living rooms at all). Or with social housing residents being asked to pay separately for communal areas maintenance (because the government doesn't pay for that but you can't really stop people from walking on the grass) that they didn't ask for.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      Nothing is perfect but it's a long way forward from complete segregation.

jedberg 6y ago

I love my section 8 tenants. Same here, they take good care of the place and the government doesn't miss rent payments. Some counties even provide free legal help for landlords if their section 8 tenants do something bad. It's actually pretty low risk. The main downside is the increased overhead of paperwork and inspections. The government wants to (rightly) make sure you aren't a slumlord so they do a lot more inspections.

ngngngng 6y ago
Interesting. I'm actually a bit separated from it because I pay someone ~8% of my rents to manage the place, I wasn't aware of any extra inspections or hassle so I guess I'm getting my money's worth.
- jedberg 6y ago
  I think it depends the city/county. You may not be getting any extra inspections.
koheripbal 6y ago
I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I converted all my units to luxury units, and have had far far fewer tenant problems after the renovations and rate increases. High paid tenants seldom miss payment - I've setup automatic EFT withdrawal from their accounts, so I don't even need to process checks, and they aren't really impacted by the rise in unemployment right now - most just work from home. I think the bitter spot for being a landlord (especially now) is to manage low-mid income units. ...it's just a constant stream of problems - people moving in and out - single mom's that chronically cannot afford the rent - unregistered tenants - people that refuse to pay and refuse to move out - drug and police raids... like it was a total total nightmare. Managing 12 low-mid income apartments was a full-time nightmare. Managing 12 high income lux units now takes about 4 hours every other weekend and is usually a pleasure to do.
- taylodl 6y ago
  My wife discovered the same thing. You either want to manage section 8 housing or you want higher-income housing. Once you know the system and the case workers it's easy to deal with bad section 8 tenants. It takes a while to learn the ropes, though. The higher-end tenants are generally easy to work with as you mention. The problem now is that's where all the property managers are wanting to go!

asjw 6y ago

I guess being good sometimes pay I own an apartment in Rome that I rent because I don't live there anymore. It's rented to a Bengali family that nobody wanted as tenants because they're immigrants and such (you can guess the reasoning behind it) They used to bring the grocery home to my mother, so I gladly accepted to rent my house to them when they asked They've been the best tenants I've ever had and due to covid they found themselves in the position of being one of the few local shops still open in the neighborhood, so their business didn't suffer much from the lockdown. Many in Italy stopped paying the rent for 2-3 months as of now, but they always paid in time and in full, I asked them if they needed a cut on the rent to save some money, due to the bad situation, but they refused the offer. So I'm installing air conditioning at my expenses in exchange It's good when things go smoothly despites the odds

ngngngng 6y ago
Someone must be cutting onions in here. What a great story.
mav3rick 6y ago
Thank you for being a decent human. Is racism more prevalent in Italy ?
- asjw 6y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! I just did what it felt right I'm inclined to say that racism in Italy is different from the general notion of it: I mean, there are certainly racists in Italy, no point in denying that, especially towards some ethnicities (Africans, middle Eastern and South Americans in particular, they are considered too loud and unreliable - coming from us it's really something - and often also worse than that) but Italians are mainly suspicious of what they don't know (yet) until they know them, like we still live in small state cities, surrounded by walls, that don't trust each other. But it's mostly a trust thing: still people from the north usually don't trust people from the south and vice versa. In Rome I've seen many times that Romans prefer Romans like them, just because it makes them feel safer. Until they realize they really don't like each other. Think of it as "the evil you know". I must also say that they are often wrong and that there is a good chunk of the population who really doesn't care where you come from and just loves being with others.

jungletime 6y ago

You're very lucky. Rented to a single mother with two teenage sons. The teenage sons that decided to strip down living trees of their branches, to make bonfires for parties in the backyard. Two trees are severely damaged, and anything that was burnable in the landscape is burnt. I don't even know how to go about pricing out the damage. Insurance is paying for their rent, because the last house they lived in burned down. Sent her a strongly worded email. She promised not to make more bonfires. But I was there this week, and more branches where hacked off, and one tree is almost hacked of its bark 60% around. Can't sleep at night, getting anxiety that they will burn the place down. They're to move out before the end of the month.

ponker 6y ago
Are you that worse off if they burn it down? You won’t have to worry about them resisting eviction and you’ll get an insurance payment.
- sytelus 6y ago
  Typically insurance payment doesn't cover everything. You will almost always be at some loss, often much greater than year worth of rent. Also, I'd suspect your future premium rates would rise given insurance companies will see increased risk due to your history of getting bad tenants.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  Insurance payments being equal, I don't think it needs to be said that not wanting your things to be set on fire is a reasonable ask.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Problem tenants are different levels of problem in different jurisdictions. In San Francisco, I can imagine a landlord being perfectly happy to eat the distress of a tenant burning down their property, given that in the same stroke they solved the problem of their occupancy of the property.
6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

blackswan101 6y ago

I am also in the process of converting my units to section 8.

conanbatt 6y ago

Your tenant is the government though. Thats often pretty sweet if you can get it.

miked85 6y ago

I doubt that communities adjacent to you were nearly as grateful.

yardie 6y ago

I lived in a building with a few section 8 tenants. Most were disabled, some elderly, and others young single mothers. I only found out we had any at all because the property manager mentioned it to me. It was primarily a building of young professionals and grad students. She told me management love them. Government always pays the rent on time. They still had to pass a background check so that locked out a lot of the assumptions.

hackerbrother 6y ago

You should waive their fees for the duration of Corona, and refund any ones you've received! Just saying, it would be a great way to do some good, and they might get a lot more out of the 100/200 than you would!

reshyith 6y ago

I am very thankful to hear you have had a good experience with your Section 8 tenants. As a HUD-VASH veteran recipient in Los Angeles, I have hoped to discover that there are reasons to expand programs for more low-income people in the United States. I am EXTREMELY fortunate as a veteran to receive housing assistance. Thanks for making it possible for people in need to have a safe and affordable option! Blessings!

roenxi 6y ago

There is a real problem with the situation though. And I want to distinguish between the decision you've made, which are savvy, and the broader picture where this showcases some of the more unfortunate elements of socialism. It is a terrible outcome if millions of Americans are about to go broke and the relative winners are people who (a) totally rely on government handouts and (b) rely on people who are totally reliant on government handouts. This story points to a situation where a rational person would rather be involved in ventures that produce less resources than they consume. That will really start to hurt the absolute measures of prosperity if it persists for long.

perfunctory 6y ago

what a nice government subsidy you have there.