Home : What is the Section 8 Housing Program?

What is the Section 8 Housing Program?

Posted by Tina Merritt on 12/15/2009 at 5:41 PM
Posted in Real Estate Investing

Blog Image The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program began in 1974 and is administered by the Department of HUD and allows low income families to choose privately owned rental properties. The Section Voucher and Certificate Programs currently help more than 1.5 million US households.

According to HUD's website: "The public housing authority (PHA) generally pays the landlord the difference between 30 percent of household income and the PHA-determined payment standard-about 80 to 100 percent of the fair market rent (FMR)."

Once a property owner agrees to accept Section * funds, they also agree to abide by the rules and regulations of the program. The Public Housing Authority regularly inspects the properties to make sure they comply with HUD quality standards.

One of the most popular benefits of the Section 8 Housing Program is that you are almost guaranteed to receive at least 60% of your rent on time each month. You also are free to screen tenants as you always have to determine if they will be accepted as a tenant for one of your properties. Most Section 8 tenants will want to pay their share on time to avoid the rick of losing their eligibility for the rental subsidy.

So, what are the downsides? Well, as I mentioned before, there are strict rules and guidelines for participating as a landlord in the Section 8 program. For example, the local housing agency sets the fair market rent, not the landlord. Also, the landlord is only permitted to collect one month of rent as a security deposit.

If as a landlord, you are interested in accepting vouchers for the Section 8 program, there isn't anything you really need to do other than advertise your property as "section 8 welcome" and let the local PHA know you have a property available.

Tina Merritt is an 11 year veteran Real Estate Agent and Trainer based out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. She holds a degree in economics from Virginia Tech and post-baccalaureate from Virginia Commonwealth in real estate and land development. As an avid social networker and internet marketer, Tina helps real estate agents, loan officers and affiliated industries embrace technology. As a real estate agent, Tina primarily deals with marketing and selling properties deemed "hard to sell" and also works with real estate investors helping them build and/or liquidate their portfolios for maximum profit.

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3 Comments

Posted by Zarina Azman on 12/16/2009 12:52 AM

I see this program has benefits especially in the time when the economy is doing quite badly. For the developers they earn monthly income with low risk. If a family cannot afford the rent then they evacuate and let others who can afford come in instead. So there is less regulations and red tape. On the other hand for the people who are in a tight situation coughing out a month of downpayment instead of three months like the usual practice proves to be less of a burden. I think more developers should consider doing this type of program. They need not buy more land and build and sell all through their years of business. They rent out their property and can keep it in their name for even generations to come. I met many older people in their seventies enjoying life meditating and living peacefully with continous income through their collection of rent from small low cost homes. Some owning twenty houses and having even their children benefit from their previous efforts. This is an eye opener for me I should make effort to be a developer of my current agriculture lands and build properties for rental purpose instead.

Posted by member11047613 on 12/27/2009 10:25 PM

Hud is in on gangstalking according to some sites and in one article they were named as the worst landlord of all. People who were on Hud were cheated and made to pay for damage to apartments they didn't do just so they could stay on Hud, and the landlords came in the apartments when the tenants were gone and stole things. Tenants pinched a tiny piece of paper in the door and closed it and the paper could only fall down when the door was opened and when they got home the piece of paper had fallen out. Neighbor saw the landlords going in the apartments when the tenants were out. In one apartment the managers were going in a using the showers of apartments that were not rented but in once case the new tenants were moving in and they didn't know that and they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor and when the managers opened the door they frightened the tenants on the floor and then when they noticed they were in there they exclaimed, "Oh, sh..." and hurried and shut the door but they figured out what was going on. It was a senior complex and they had their young son living with them who was only in his twenties and they were using the other units so they could all shower and get ready to leave and they got caught. They had a couple who were living in the back of the complex in a camper and they were pouring their waste out of buckets on the ground in the parking lot and were seen doing this.

Posted by member1798092 on 03/06/2010 6:05 PM

Section 8 housing is a great program. If you have an investor looking at a specific property that already has an acceptable section 8 tenant all the better! I have found that the rents that are set are more than fair and do follow market trends.
http://massrealestatenews.com

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