Harris County Housing Voucher rent (Section 8) advice needed

[Sandra Hughes]

Hi - I'm looking to purchase a property to use as a Housing Voucher rental. Do you have any advice as to how the process works when I'm purchasing the property? I heard there is a wait period for getting an inspection with Harris County. I don't want to waste time while in the transaction period. How do I work with HC simultaneously so that closing and county program approval are near the same time line? Thanks 

[Melissa Hartvigsen]

Quote from @Sandra Hughes:

Hi - I'm looking to purchase a property to use as a Housing Voucher rental. Do you have any advice as to how the process works when I'm purchasing the property? I heard there is a wait period for getting an inspection with Harris County. I don't want to waste time while in the transaction period. How do I work with HC simultaneously so that closing and county program approval are near the same time line? Thanks 

Hello Sandra,

Your local Housing Authority manages the Section 8 program. It is not possible for you to start the approval process until you are officially the owner. 

Tenants who receive Section 8 vouchers are allowed to select any rental unit on the market. Once they have submitted an application to you, and it is approved, only then will the authority schedule an inspection. The inspection is to verify habitability of the home.

Most housing authorities have a long wait lists of tenants who are struggling to find housing. I recommend that you reach out to the Housing Authority as soon as you are the owner, and tell them you would like to be on their preferred landlords list. This may help you secure a tenant faster, and in turn get the process for your property being approved.

[Jonathan Taylor Smith]

@Sandra Hughes - That may be possible depending on the seller and if they are willing to provide you access to the property prior to closing. It also depends on if the property is in inspection ready condition or if it will need work / upgrades to be able to pass inspection. If so, you'll likely have to wait until after closing before you can make modifications to the property. What you can do now regardless is register yourself / company as a landlord with the housing agency. And note... I'm not certain of Harris County specifically, but in my location, an inspection cannot be scheduled for a property until AFTER you have a prospective tenant for which you have submitted the Request for Tenancy Approval (RFTA) to the housing agency. They will then process the RFTA, tell you what rent the tenant is approved for, and ask if you'll accept it. Then once accepted, the inspection is scheduled. So if Harris county also handles it this way, you'll not be able to get the inspection even scheduled until after you have already listed the property for rent and gotten an application from someone with a voucher.

[John Morgan]

@Sandra Hughes

I'm not in Harris county but with Arlington housing authority. I recently bought a SFR and reached out to my housing authority to get the ball rolling before I even closed. I told them I want to time it so there's barely any downtime between purchase and the inspection. They said they have a big demand for rentals and worked with me. I got it inspected the day I requested and had a tenant move in that same afternoon. Reach out and get the dialogue going. They need MORE rentals and have a long waiting list for people needing a place.

[Scott Mac]

Quote from @Sandra Hughes:

Hi - I'm looking to purchase a property to use as a Housing Voucher rental. Do you have any advice as to how the process works when I'm purchasing the property? I heard there is a wait period for getting an inspection with Harris County. I don't want to waste time while in the transaction period. How do I work with HC simultaneously so that closing and county program approval are near the same time line? Thanks 

I went to an in person meeting in San Antonio that had a Q and A session as well a a power point.

They had it in their nice building in a nice neighborhood, with a lot of their customers queing up and milling around.

I met some of their key employee's and had my written list of questions answered.

They even had chips and bottled water for the meeting participants.

If your Section-8 has a meeting like this--going to it might be a good use of your time.

You can ask anything you want, and meet those who you will be dealing with inside the organization (and get a feel for their personalities).

It actually seemed like a very pleasant workplace with satisfied employees and satisfied bosses.

San Antonio is Bexar County.

Good Luck!