The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) finalized Fair Market Rents (FMRs) for fiscal year 2016. The FMRs are provided for metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan counties by state.

HUD received 83 comments during the public comment period, most of which focused on FMR reductions compared with the FY 2015 levels and the fact that FMRs are not keeping up with tight rental markets. HUD said none of the comments provided market rent data that could be used to adjust the FY 2016 FMRs.

HUD Proposes Fair Market Rents for 2016

September 15, 2016 — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed 2016 Fair Market Rents (FMRs). HUD is accepting comments on the proposed rents through October 8, 2015.

FMRs are used to set payment standards and rents for several HUD-assisted housing programs, such as:

  • Housing Choice Voucher program
  • Expiring project-based Section 8 contracts
  • Housing assistance payment contracts in Mod Rehab Single Room Occupancy program
  • Rental assistance units in the HOME Investment Partnerships program
  • Public housing

The FY 2016 FMRs are based on American Community Survey data from 2009 to 2013.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rent and utility indexes are used to further update the data to 2014. These values are then trended forward to FY 2016 using the annualized change in median gross rents as measured across the most recent 5 years of available 1 year ACS data. While HUD will continue to use this trend factor for the calculation of FY 2016 FMRs, the Department is considering replacing it with a forward-looking forecast for the FY 2017 FMRs.