Fair Market Rents - What Are They?

Landlords who rent or are considering renting properties to tenants who receive government assistance through the HUD Section 8 voucher programs, should know what to expect in terms of market rent for your property. HUD publishes a Fair Market Rent schedule each year for every State.

What are Fair Market Rents?
Fair Market Rents (FMRs) are primarily used to determine payment standard amounts for the Housing Choice Voucher program, to determine initial renewal rents for some expiring project-based Section 8 contracts, to determine initial rents for housing assistance payment (HAP) contracts in the Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy program (Mod Rehab), and to serve as a rent ceiling in the HOME rental assistance program. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annually estimates FMRs for 530 metropolitan areas and 2,045 nonmetropolitan county FMR areas. By law the final FMRs for use in any fiscal year must be published and available for use at the start of that fiscal year, on October 1.

Here is a link to the 2008 Fair Market Rent schedule.

Fair Market Rents defined


Sources:
http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr.html