Can Section 8 ever decrease rents? Will they?

Question

I have looked everywhere and cannot find the answer.

Suppose the contracted rent is $1000 and at the time it is considered fair market rent.

Now suppose 1 year later the rental market tanks and fair market rents are $500

Can (or will) the housing authority adjust rental payments accordingly?

or does it stay locked in at $1000 as long as the tenant doesn't move out?

Ned Carey · Answer

@Jason J. Yes they absolutely can lower rents. The Baltimore City Section 8 program planed to roll out and entirely  new way of evaluating rents which would have seen lots of inner city rents go down and better areas go up. That got shelved, I suspect because enough landlords complained they realized they would be creating a serous problem for themselves.

They are not likely to make an adjustment themselves but it could be triggered by you asking for an increase and they decide to actually lower the rent instead.

A much more realistic concern is, will they lower rents when a new tenant is placed. This can and does happen. It has started to become somewhat common in Baltimore.

The Baltimore program is under financial pressure because so many people want to be on section 8. There are not enough vouchers to go around.  Each section 8 office is run by the local municipality, I presume that means county by county. Different programs will likely very different in this regard.

John Underwood · Answer

@Jason J. I just requested and received $125 per month increases for both of my section 8 houses. I'm pretty sure this is a 1 year contract and it is renewed annually. You have to request changes so I don't think they would ever go out of their way to reduce your initial agreement.

Could it happen, sure. I think it would be highly unlikely though.

Dennis M. · Answer

your worrying over nothing bro . Section 8 is great 👍

Bill B. · Answer

And you’re screwed forever? You can’t kick out the section 8 tenant that’s paying less and collect market rent from a regular tenant instead? What if they cut the rent in half, then can you kick them out? Or are they still paying over market with the rent cut?

Sujit Silla · Answer

section 8 can and do decrease rents..

all depends on who is managing a rent increase request.. They have a very opaque process with zero transparency..

They just decreased my rent on a house I rented a year ago in Southern California.. To say that market rents have gone down here in the past year is a ridiculous statement, and yet my rent is down and I have no way to contest it..

Brian Garlington · Answer

I've never heard of Section 8 DECREASING rents and I have Section 8 rentals in Ohio and California. The whole reason for (me) utilizing Section 8 is literally to have a hedge against WHEN the real estate market crashes again as well as having (almost) guaranteed renters that don't want to move out and guaranteed rent where 70 to 95% of it is paid into my account by the government on the first of each month.

David J. · Answer

@John Underwood So isn't this somewhat like a shelter against a market correction then? If I have 30 year mortgage and rents on section 8 that cover my payments. Nice!

Can Section 8 ever decrease rents? Will they?

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