HUD Housing Data
HUD provides Fair Market Rents (FMR), standard and MTSP income limits, and CHAS housing affordability data. FMR and standard income limits are available by state or HUD geography entity. CHAS is available by national, state, county, minor civil division, and place summary levels. MCPBundles supplies the HUD User API token server-side, so users can enable the server without entering a HUD credential. 60 queries/min rate limit.
Data Model
- Fair Market Rents (FMR) — annual HUD-determined rent levels by bedroom count for each metropolitan area, county, town, and state. Used for Section 8 voucher payment standards.
- Income Limits — Very Low (50% AMI), Extremely Low (30% AMI), Low (80% AMI), and MTSP thresholds by household size and area.
- CHAS data — Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy data showing housing problems, cost burden, and affordability by income level, household type, and race/ethnicity at state, county, and city levels (Census ACS special tabulations).
Gotchas
- Rate limit: 60 queries per minute.
- FMR/IL geographies: Find county, town, and metro entity IDs before asking for entity-level rent or income-limit data.
- County entity IDs: FMR/IL county lookup rows expose the entity identifier as fips_code; use that value as entity_id for FMR, standard income-limit, and MTSP income-limit calls.
- CHAS geographies: Use numeric Census state FIPS codes and CHAS entity IDs, not USPS state abbreviations.
- FMR data years: Updated annually, typically available October for the following fiscal year.
- Income Limits 2025: HUD updated some FIPS codes; use updated=2025 when listing counties or metro areas for 2025 Income Limits work.
- Attribution: This product uses the HUD User Data API but is not endorsed or certified by HUD User.
