LA County to forbid discrimination on Section 8 status

[Shiva Bhaskar]

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LA-County...

Something that LA County landlords should keep in mind, as I see many listings on Zillow, in south LA especially, which explicitly state "no Section 8." Might make sense to talk to a housing attorney about strategies here, but I know in places like NYC, landlords created and stuck by clear income and credit score guidelines, which in most cases tenants on vouchers will not meet. For the record, I think Section 8 can work for some folks, but I don't like the idea of forcing it on landlords, especially given the fact that payments to landlords might be missed due to government shutdown etc.  

[James Yoo]

We have most of our properties in South LA. About 20% of our tenants our Section 8. It depends on each landlord's threshold / willingness to deal with Sec 8's BS as well as the drama of people in this socio-economic status, but it's been good to us for the most part.

Now, regarding discrimination...if you have any screening process, it is ridiculously easy to screen out most tenants. It might not be according to the exact "letter of the law" but you need to protect your assets, as the govt is doing virtually everything in its power to screw you. And thankfully you have many tools in your toolset to disqualify applicants.

I do a very thorough background check, and scrutinize the application itself. Note that ANY discrepancy or missing field on the rental application can be used as a disqualifier.
 

I am also calling the tenant's most recent landlord, and (probably more importantly) the landlord before that.