@Sean Doyle - Toledo is the only city I operate in. I have found enough business and made enough money not to need to expand outside of this market.
Section 8 is a whole different ball game but I find the program is unique in that it's a 3-party relationship adding the variable of a government agency. The ways around that are to build a business around supporting their voucher and inspection program and spending no small amount of effort ensuring they are smoothly servicing your rentals.
I also advise participating in regular meetings with them. Ours is Lucas County Housing (LMH, previously LMHA). I serve on committees when able, and generally be understanding that a program aligned with our federal HUD is going to have it's inefficiencies. The result is we have supervisors and executives we can reach out to assist us if a property is truly being ignored by a case manager.
Is it work? Hell, yes. This is the foundation of why LaPlante Real Estate is based in portfolio management and property management... my personal portfolio started in 2009 and I find the majority tends to be Section 8.
Does it make money? Well, my original SFH purchased in 2010 still has its original S8 resident. I believe it started at $700/mo in the good old days of the recession and is now up to $1000 (undervalue about $150 for that area). The resident is great and the rent rate reflects that.
BiggerPockets has a TON of misconceptions about renting. The first misconception is that you can declare a property headed onto the market only S8 eligible, refusing to consider traditional applicants. The second that the ~$1400 face value of a 3 bedroom voucher is going to get you that rent rate). It's not that different from a normal rent increase. Very commonly the resident pays a portion of the rent so your rent increase will affect their budget and their lives.
It's not free government money being given to careless, loafing, dead end residents. @James Wise gonna have to disagree with the "lie cheat steal" concept regarding residents.
Any resident has the potential to be less than desirable. In my 15 yrs investing in Toledo, operating S8 rentals, I have not found a statistical difference between normal and subsidized residents. If anything, when you accept rentals in the higher-end neighborhoods, the rent rate exceeds the voucher limit, meaning the resident has to have their own income in order to qualify. These I have found are real, striving parents, working their butts off to provide the best housing and school system for their children.
My ethos in this approach is exactly why we at LaPlante refer to them as Residents, as we consider "Tenant and Landlord" to be dated terms and rife with negative emotion. We spend our time here in Toledo providing responsibly managed housing and treating our residents with the respect any of us on this forum would appreciate.
