The spread is the single most useful number on this site and the easiest to over read. Here is the arithmetic, the Minnesota distribution, and the two mistakes that make it lie to you.
Spread is market asking rent minus the 2 bedroom fair market rent, in dollars. Spread percent is that difference divided by the fair market rent. A positive spread means landlords are asking more than the published voucher standard. A negative spread means the standard already sits at or above the ask, which is what we flag as voucher competitive.
Worked example. In Minneapolis 55413, Hennepin County, the FY2026 2 bedroom fair market rent is $1,830 and the Zillow market rent is $1,784. The spread is -$46, which is -2.5 percent of the fair market rent. Because the fair market rent is the larger number, a voucher there is the stronger offer.
Across the 172 Minnesota ZIP codes with both signals, the median spread is -2.6 percent. A quarter of ZIP codes sit at or below -9.1 percent and a quarter sit at or above +11.5 percent, so the middle half of the state falls inside that range. Anything outside it is worth a second look, in either direction.
Treat a spread inside roughly five percent as noise. The two numbers come from different sources, different bedroom mixes, and different time periods, and a payment standard set anywhere in the normal 90 to 110 percent band swamps a difference that small. It is the ZIP codes twenty or thirty percent out that are telling you something.
Use it to rank places. Comparing spreads across ZIP codes in the same month is the honest comparison, because the sources and the vintages are identical for every row. That makes it a good screen for where to pull comps, where to market a unit to voucher holders, or which submarket to underwrite next.
Do not use it as a valuation for one building. A large negative spread can mean the voucher standard is genuinely generous, or it can mean the ZIP code is full of studios and one bedrooms so the all sizes index reads below a 2 bedroom benchmark. A large positive spread can mean a hot market, or it can mean a handful of new luxury buildings are doing the listing. The spread tells you where to look. Comps tell you what it is worth.
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.
When you have a specific ZIP code and a specific asking rent, the landlord voucher check does this arithmetic for you and adds the voucher competitive ZIP codes nearby. The full ranked table for all 172 ZIP codes is on the Section 8 spread page, and the definitions are in the methodology. Data last updated 2026-09-05.
Spread is market asking rent minus the 2 bedroom fair market rent. Negative means the fair market rent is higher, which we flag as voucher competitive. Across 172 Minnesota ZIP codes the median spread is -2.6 percent, with the middle half falling between -9.1 and +11.5 percent.
It is a good sign, not a guarantee. A negative spread can also appear where the ZIP code is dominated by small units, which pulls the all sizes market index below a 2 bedroom benchmark. Check the bedroom table on the ZIP page before you conclude the voucher outbids the market.
Roughly five percent is noise, because the payment standard alone can move 20 percentage points around the published fair market rent. Differences of twenty or thirty percent are structural and worth acting on.
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