888.113—Fair market rents for existing housing: Methodology.

(a) Basis for setting fair market rents. Fair Market Rents (FMRs) are estimates of rent plus the cost of utilities, except telephone. FMRs are housing market-wide estimates of rents that provide opportunities to rent standard quality housing throughout the geographic area in which rental housing units are in competition. The level at which FMRs are set is expressed as a percentile point within the rent distribution of standard quality rental housing units in the FMR area. FMRs are set at either the 40th or 50th percentile rent—the dollar amount below which the rent for 40 or 50 percent of standard quality rental housing units falls. The 40th or 50th percentile rent is drawn from the distribution of rents of all units that are occupied by recent movers. Adjustments are made to exclude public housing units, newly built units and substandard units.

(b) Setting FMRs at the 40th or 50th percentile rent. Generally HUD will set the FMRs at the 40th percentile rent. HUD will set FMRs at the 50th percentile only in accordance with paragraph (c) of this section.

(c) Setting FMRs at the 50th percentile rent to provide a broad range of housing opportunities throughout a metropolitan area. (1) HUD will set the FMRs at the 50th percentile rent for all unit sizes in each metropolitan FMR area that meets all of the following criteria at the time of annual publication of the FMRs:

(i) The FMR area contains at least 100 census tracts;

(ii) 70 percent or fewer of the census tracts with at least 10 two bedroom rental units are census tracts in which at least 30 percent of the two bedroom rental units have gross rents at or below the two bedroom FMR set at the 40th percentile rent; and

(iii) 25 percent or more of the tenant-based rental program participants in the FMR area reside in the 5 percent of the census tracts within the FMR area that have the largest number of program participants.

(2) If the FMRs are set at the 50th percentile rent in accordance with paragraph (c)(1) of this section, HUD will set the FMRs at the 50th percentile rent for a total of three years.

(i) At the end of the three-year period, HUD will continue to set the FMRs at the 50th percentile rent only so long as the concentration measure for the current year is less than the concentration measure at the time the FMR area first received an FMR set at the 50th percentile rent. HUD will publish FMRs based on the 40th percentile rent for FMR areas that do not qualify for continued use of the 50th percentile rent.

(ii) For purposes of this section, the term “concentration measure” means the percentage of tenant-based rental program participants in the FMR area who reside in the 5 percent of the census tracts within the FMR area that have the largest number of program participants.

(iii) FMR areas that do not meet the test for continued use of FMRs set at the 50th percentile will be ineligible to use FMRs set at the 50th percentile for a period of three years.

(iv) A PHA whose jurisdiction includes one or more FMR areas that are no longer eligible to use FMRs set at the 50th percentile may be eligible for a higher payment standard under § 982.503(f).

(d) FMR Areas. FMR areas are metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan counties (nonmetropolitan parts of counties in the New England States). With several exceptions, the most current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) metropolitan area definitions of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSAs) are used because of their generally close correspondence with housing market area definitions. HUD may make exceptions to OMB definitions if the MSAs or PMSAs encompass areas that are larger than housing market areas. The counties deleted from the HUD-defined FMR areas in those cases are established as separate metropolitan county FMR areas. FMRs are established for all areas in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Pacific Islands.

(e) Data sources. (1) HUD uses the most accurate and current data available to develop the FMR estimates and may add other data sources as they are discovered and determined to be statistically valid. The following sources of survey data are used to develop the base-year FMR estimates:

(i) The most recent decennial Census, which provides statistically reliable rent data.

(ii) The American Housing Survey (AHS) data, conducted by the Bureau of the Census for HUD. AHS's have comparable accuracy to the decennial Census, and are used to develop between-census revisions for the largest metropolitan areas on a four-year revolving schedule.

(iii) Random Digit Dialing (RDD) telephone survey data, based on a sampling procedure that uses computers to select statistically random samples of rental housing.

(iv) Statistically valid information, as determined by HUD, presented to HUD during the public comment and review period.

(2) Base-year FMRs are updated and trended to the midpoint of the program year they are to be effective using Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for rents and for utilities or using rent-change factors obtained from the RDD regional surveys. The RDD rent-change factors are developed annually for the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan parts of the HUD-specified geographic regions not covered by CPI surveys, and are used to update the base-year FMR estimates within these regions.

(f) Unit size adjustments. (1) For most areas the ratios developed from the most recent decennial Census are applied to the two-bedroom FMR estimates to derive FMRs for other bedroom sizes. Exceptions to this procedure may be made for areas with local bedroom intervals below an acceptable range. To help the largest most difficult to house families find units, higher ratios than the actual market ratios may be used for three-bedroom and larger-size units.

(2) The FMR for single room occupancy housing is 75 percent of the FMR for a zero bedroom unit.

(g) Manufactured home space rental. The FMR for a manufactured home space rental (for the voucher program under part 982 of this title) is:

(1) 40 percent of the FMR for a two bedroom unit; or

(2) When approved by HUD on the basis of survey data submitted in public comments, either the 40th or 50th percentile as applicable of the rental distribution of manufactured home spaces for the FMR area. HUD accepts public comments requesting revision of the proposed manufactured home spaces FMRs for areas where space rentals are thought to differ from 40 percent of the FMR for a two-bedroom unit. To be considered for approval, the comments must contain statistically valid survey data that show either the 40th or 50th percentile manufactured home space rent (including the cost of utilities for the manufactured home) for the FMR area. Once approved, the revised manufactured home space FMRs establish new base-year estimates that will be updated annually using the same data used to update the FMRs.

Code of Federal Regulations

[60 FR 42226, Aug. 15, 1995, as amended at 64 FR 56911, Oct. 21, 1999; 65 FR 58873, Oct. 2, 2000]

CFR

888.113—Fair market rents for existing housing: Methodology.

Code of Federal Regulations