That’s entirely up to the landlord. None of our clients accept Section 8 vouchers, so those applicants get zero priority. On the other hand, I know a guy in California who has somewhere between 35–50 rental properties and he ONLY accepts Section 8 tenants.
It’s not like just anyone can be a Section 8 landlord. You have to sign up with the program and your property has to be inspected – and pass the inspection – before you can accept Section 8 vouchers.
Although the inspections don’t seem like they’d be a big deal, some of the requirements can be stupid. One of our clients had just bought a nice little condo for a rental property. As soon as we listed it, we had two applications – one from a Section 8 tenant, one from a non-Section 8.
Here, Section 8 has up to 30 days after the tenant moves in to do the inspection and if ANY repairs/modifications are required, the landlord doesn’t get paid until they’re done and the unit is passed. In this particular case, the new owner would have had to modify the welded security screens on the back patio. That would have been very costly and there was no logical reason for it.
So he declined becoming a Section 8 landlord and accepted the other applicant instead.
