Long-term rental, section 8, vs airbnb for West Oakland home?

[Eric Li]

Hey BP,

My family is moving to SoCal but want to keep our 4 bed / 2 bath West Oakland home in case we want to move back and because we have a low interest rate.

We want to rent it out and are considering long-term rental, section 8, or airbnbing it out. What would you recommend and why?

Our PITI is a bit under $4,000, and here's what we care about:

1. Rent: we want to at least cover PITI, earning more would be nice
2. Vacancy rates: we’ll be out of state, and want to minimize turnover. We’ll probably have a property manager.
3. Tenant quality: avoiding headaches or having to fly up to handle issues is important.
4. Ability to move back in: we know we’d need an owner move back in clause, we’re aware of protected classes, relocation payments for no cause evictions, etc.

Based on what we care about and anything else we should consider, what would you recommend and why?

Right now, we probably lean towards long-term rental as the rent is reasonable, vacancy rates may be lower especially if we rent to families. Section 8 sounds good in theory since government pays a big part of the rent, but it all seems to hinge on finding the right tenant and screening really well to avoid a bad tenant. We lean away from Airbnb because neighbors who tried it said vacancy & maintenance costs were high.

Any feedback welcome. Thanks!