About Atlas Data

Rent statistics

What it shows. The headline rent figures on every Atlas area page — average rent, median rent, the 25th and 75th percentiles, and breakdowns by bedroom count and property type — come from Rentometer’s own database of rental listings. We aggregate these statistically over the last 12 months of listings within the area you’re viewing.

Where it comes from. Rentometer, Inc. collects rental listings from a wide range of sources and normalizes them into a single dataset. This is the dataset Rentometer is best known for.

Coverage notes. Areas with very few recent listings show a “not enough data” message instead of potentially misleading statistics. We require at least three listings of the same bedroom type before reporting a breakdown for that type.

HUD Fair Market Rent — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. A side-by-side benchmark of Rentometer’s observed rents against HUD’s Fair Market Rent (FMR) values for the same bedroom counts. FMRs are the payment standards HUD uses for the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program and are roughly the 40th percentile of recent-mover gross rents in an area.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes FMRs annually for every metropolitan area and non-metro county, effective October 1 of each federal fiscal year. We display the most recent published schedule.

Coverage notes. HUD publishes FMRs at the metro and county level. For some ZIP codes, HUD also publishes Small Area FMRs (SAFMRs); when available, we use the SAFMR for that ZIP. Otherwise the ZIP inherits the value of its containing metro or county.

Map

What it shows. An interactive map of the area you’re viewing, with the boundary outlined and a visualization of where the listings in our sample sit geographically.

Where it comes from. Boundary outlines come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line geographic files. Listing locations come from Rentometer’s own dataset.

Coverage notes. Individual property markers with exact location, price, bedrooms, and square footage are available to Rentometer subscribers.

Demographics & Housing (ACS) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. Demographic and housing context for the area — median household income, median age, educational attainment, race and ethnicity composition, median home value, median gross rent, renter share, vacancy rate, and average commute time, among others.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates. The ACS is the largest household survey in the country; the 5-year file pools five years of sample to produce reliable estimates even for small geographies. The Census Bureau publishes a new 5-year vintage every December.

Coverage notes. ACS estimates carry margins of error. We flag values whose margin of error is wide relative to the estimate. Places with population under approximately 5,000 may be suppressed by the Census Bureau in the 5-year file and will not appear here.

Unemployment (BLS LAUS) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. The most recent monthly unemployment rate for the area, plus a short trend series so you can see whether the local labor market has been strengthening or weakening.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. LAUS publishes monthly, not seasonally adjusted estimates for states, metros, and counties, typically with a two-month lag.

Coverage notes. BLS publishes LAUS at the state, metro, and county level. ZIP codes and places (cities) inherit the unemployment rate of their containing county — LAUS is not published at sub-county granularity.

Wages (BLS QCEW) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. Average weekly wage for all covered employment in the area, year-over-year change, and covered employment levels — useful context for rent-to- income comparisons.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). QCEW counts essentially every job covered by unemployment insurance — roughly 95% of all U.S. jobs — and is published quarterly with a roughly two-quarter lag.

Coverage notes. Figures shown are all-industry totals, not broken out by sector. BLS publishes QCEW at the state, metro, and county level. ZIP codes and places inherit the value of their containing county.

Housing affordability (HUD CHAS) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. The share of renter households in the area that are cost-burdened (paying more than 30% of their income on housing) and severely cost-burdened (paying more than 50%), broken down by Area Median Income band when available.

Where it comes from. HUD’s Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) tabulations, derived from the Census Bureau’s ACS 5-year file. HUD typically releases a new CHAS vintage roughly every year, with the underlying ACS data lagging by several years.

Coverage notes. HUD publishes CHAS at the state, county, and place level. For metro areas, we synthesize a metro-level value by population-weighting the published values of the constituent counties. ZIP codes inherit the value of their containing county.

New construction (Census BPS) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. Residential building permits issued in the area in the most recent vintage year — total units, the split between single-family and multi-family, and year-over-year change. Building permits are a forward- looking indicator of new housing supply that will reach the rental market over the next 12 to 24 months.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Building Permits Survey, an annual census of permit-issuing jurisdictions in the United States.

Coverage notes. Permits represent intent to build, not completed units. Year-over-year change is suppressed when the prior-year base is too small to be statistically meaningful. Some small places are not present in the survey file and will not show new-construction data.

Schools (NCES CCD) — available to Pro subscribers, see plans

Included with Rentometer Pro — subscribers see this data on every Atlas area page. See plans

What it shows. Basic information about the public school districts and schools serving the area — district name, number of schools, total enrollment, and student-teacher ratio where reported.

Where it comes from. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Common Core of Data (CCD). CCD is the federal government’s primary database on public elementary and secondary education in the United States and is updated annually.

Coverage notes. CCD covers public schools only. Private and charter coverage varies. Boundaries reflect the most recent school year for which NCES has published data, which typically lags the current school year by one to two years.

Citation

If you cite, share, or republish data from Atlas, please credit Rentometer as well as the original government source where applicable. Rentometer does not own, produce, or warrant the underlying public-domain data republished on Atlas; we maintain the integrations and the presentation.