Five explainers, each written from the same data that runs the rest of this site rather than from a textbook. Every figure quoted in them is regenerated when the data is, so they do not drift out of date the way an evergreen blog post does.
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| What is fair market rent? | HUD's 40th percentile estimate of gross rent, published per ZIP code, and the base every payment standard is built from. |
| FMR versus the payment standard | Two numbers people treat as one. HUD publishes the first, your housing authority sets the second. |
| Does Section 8 pay more than market rent in Minnesota? | Answered as a count of ZIP codes rather than an opinion, with the places where the gap is widest. |
| What is ZORI? | The Zillow Observed Rent Index, the market rent line on every page here, and the three things it is not. |
| How to read the Section 8 spread | The arithmetic, the Minnesota distribution, and the two ways the spread misleads people. |
Almost every question that reaches us about Minnesota rent data is one of these five. What is fair market rent, and is it the average. Why does the housing authority quote a different number than HUD publishes. Does taking a voucher mean taking less rent. What is that Zillow line. And what does the spread between the two actually mean.
The answers are short on purpose and they carry live figures rather than round ones. The statewide median 2 bedroom fair market rent is $1,090 for FY2026, the median market asking rent across the 172 tracked ZIP codes is $1,668, and 97 of 172 ZIP codes with both signals are voucher competitive. When those numbers change, these pages change with them.
None of it is legal or financial advice, and none of it is a payment standard. Data last updated 2026-09-05.
Payment standards are not in this data. Vouchers in Minnesota run through dozens of separate housing authorities. Each authority sets its own payment standard, normally between 90 and 110 percent of the published fair market rent, and can ask HUD to approve more. Nothing on this page adjusts for that. Check the payment standard with the housing authority: Metro HRA, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and Saint Paul Public Housing Agency.
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