This page explains, once, how the figures on Safe Rental Guide are produced, so that articles can link here instead of repeating it. If a number on the site ever looks wrong, this is what to check it against.
Where our information comes from
We work from primary sources: federal data files, the Code of Federal Regulations, state statutes, and the published guidance of agencies such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). News articles and other websites may point us to something, but the figure you read is taken from the original document.
Each figure is linked, in the paragraph where it appears, to the specific page that supports it. Every article closes with a Sources section that says what each source was used for and the date it was last checked.
How we count rent data
Our rent figures are built on HUD’s Fair Market Rents (FMRs), which the agency publishes every year on its FMR data page. We download the files and count them ourselves. HUD published the data; the totals, rankings and comparisons are our own calculations and are not statements by HUD.
What a Fair Market Rent is, and is not
An FMR is not the average rent in an area. Under 24 CFR 888.113, FMRs are “estimates of rent plus the cost of utilities, except telephone,” generally set at the 40th percentile of rents paid by recent movers. In plain terms: of the homes people recently moved into, about 40 percent rent for less than the FMR and about 60 percent for more, utilities included. HUD uses FMRs to run housing programs such as Housing Choice Vouchers; we use them as a consistent yardstick that exists for every county in the country.
The files and the year
We use the county-level file and the Small Area (ZIP code) file for each fiscal year. HUD’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, so “FY 2027” means October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. Every count on the site is labeled with the fiscal year of the file it comes from. HUD republishes each fall and sometimes revises a year after releasing it; when that happens we use the revised file and say so.
Rows, areas and what we compare
- What a row is. In most states each row of the county file is a county. In the six New England states the rows are towns. When we say “counties,” we mean rows of that file, and articles note the New England exception where it matters.
- Counties versus FMR areas. Several counties often share one FMR area and therefore one set of rents. When we count how many places saw a change, we count rows. When we rank the highest or lowest rents, we list each FMR area once, so a single metro does not fill the table.
- Year-over-year changes. We match the two years on HUD’s location code (the FIPS field), not on the place name, because names repeat across states. Rows that exist in only one of the two years are left out, and the article gives the number of rows the comparison is based on.
- Which bedroom size. Unless an article says otherwise, comparisons use the two-bedroom FMR, the size HUD itself treats as the reference.
- Territories. The files include Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. National counts include them unless stated; tables say when they are set apart.
Two cautions we apply
The 10 percent floor. The same regulation says HUD sets FMRs “no lower than 90 percent of the previous year’s FMR for the FMR area.” So a drop of exactly 10 percent in our tables means the area hit that floor. It does not mean market rents fell by exactly that much.
Small places move a lot. In counties with few rental homes, the estimate rests on little data and can jump sharply from one year to the next. We report those changes, flag them as volatile, and do not treat them as proof of what local rents did.
What an FMR cannot tell you
It cannot tell you what a specific apartment should cost, what a landlord may legally charge, or whether a listing is fair. It is an area-wide benchmark that includes utilities and reflects data collected before the year it applies to. We use it to compare places and years, and we say so in each article.
Laws and rules
Rental law is mostly state and local. When an article states a rule, it names the state or the federal source and links to the statute or the agency page. We do not turn a rule from one state into a general claim, and we do not give legal advice; see the Disclaimer.
Corrections and updates
If a reader reports an error through the Contact page, we check it against the source and correct the article if it is wrong. When a correction changes a figure or a conclusion, the article notes what changed. Articles built on annual data are reviewed when the new year’s file is published.
Independence
Safe Rental Guide is written by a renter, not by a company in the rental business. Who is behind the site and why is on the About page. Nobody pays to be mentioned, and we receive no commissions from landlords, insurers or listing platforms.