State Specific Question About: WISCONSIN (WI)

Are you talking about section 8? If so, you need to thoroughly screen the tenants and you need to have the unit inspected by their inspector to have it approved. They will not allow a tenant to move into a unit that hasn't passed. The tenant pays a portion of the rent based on their income, the balance is paid by section 8. These units must be inspected annually to maintain compliance to their standards. Initially you also need to do a year lease.

The common theme of success as a section 8 LL seems to be how in touch with reality the case worker types at the local housing office are.

Find out who is who and chat with them. If you can't do this... take that as fair notice of what the future will hold for you.

As to the inspection... it is akin to an FHA inspection if you were selling the house.

As to this specific applicant... the procedural hoop jumping required to get all sorted out will probably take longer than you would like or be convenient.

If they are on suc8 already and are looking it means they've been asked to move out of where they are.

Stephanie, If you are asking the question, I doubt whether you have enough experience YET to deal with all the BAD that comes with joining the housing subsity system. Lets atart with some round figures to give you the idea. The Section-8 housing program is a very badly run program in about 90% of everywhere it operates. The horrors of the system can include pro-tenant/anti-LL policies, sadistic inspectors, incompetent office workers; no one answers the telephone, returns your calls, your paperwork get lost, your payments get cut off. Everything that can happen--does happen eventually. To avoid the above, you would have to be one of the lucky ones that has a Hsg Authority in the good 10%

Then there is the tenant pool! These people are by far the bottom of the barrel, often "professional tenants" with the lowest standards of cleanliness and ZERO respect for your property. They know every way to make you suffer(complain to the Hsg Auth and get your payment stopped, call the health Dept on you after they have made the problem), never pay you their portion, never obey the rules, have vicious fights with police called to your property, etc etc.

Then there is the court system! If you are in a tenant friendly city or county--too bad for you. The Sec-8 tenant will be able to get a free lawyer--you'll have to pay, the tenant will get advice from the bailif on how to get the judge EXTEND their time in your property, and the judge can side with the tenant's story and even use his power as a judge to decide against you receivingyour due rent and expenses evern tho you have a signed contract.

Not all this happens to everyone all the time. But enough happens to enough LLs a lot of the time. And when it happens--you are just helpless, and its a living he11.