Type a Minnesota ZIP code and the monthly rent you are asking. This reads the HUD 2 bedroom fair market rent for that ZIP code straight from our data API and tells you whether a voucher at fair market rent lands above your number, within five percent of the fair market rent, or below it. No signup, nothing stored.
The lookup calls the public Pencilwrite data API, the same free JSON endpoint anyone can use. Your ZIP code and the verdict are counted in our analytics so we know which ZIP codes people ask about. The rent you type is never sent anywhere.
Three outcomes, and none of them is a yes or a no on its own. If the fair market rent lands above your asking rent, a voucher tenant at the payment standard is paying you more than the open market tenant you were hoping for, and the honest next move is to call the housing authority rather than to quietly raise the ask. If the gap between the two is inside five percent of the fair market rent, the decision is not about rent at all, it is about vacancy, turnover, and inspection timelines, because a payment standard anywhere in the 90 to 110 percent band closes a gap that small.
If your rent sits above the fair market rent, the voucher is not automatically out. The authority can set the standard as high as 110 percent of FMR and can approve exceptions above that for accessibility or for tight submarkets. Statewide the median gap between market asking rent and the 2 bedroom fair market rent is -$44, against a median market rent of $1,668 as of 2026-07, so most Minnesota gaps are small enough to be worth one phone call.
What the check will not do is guess. Where HUD publishes no fair market rent for a ZIP code, it says so instead of interpolating from a neighbour, and where Zillow does not cover the ZIP code the market rent line is simply absent.
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.
Compare your asking rent to the HUD fair market rent for the ZIP code, then remember the housing authority sets the actual payment standard between 90 and 110 percent of that figure. The statewide median 2 bedroom fair market rent in Minnesota is $1,090 for FY2026, so a typical Minnesota payment standard lands somewhere between $981 and $1,199. This tool does the first half of that comparison for your ZIP code and your number.
Often the opposite. In 97 of the 172 Minnesota ZIP codes carrying both a fair market rent and a market rent, 56 percent of them, the fair market rent meets or beats typical asking rent. In those ZIP codes the voucher is the higher offer before you even count the lower vacancy that comes with a tenant whose rent is partly paid by the authority.
It does not know your unit. Fair market rent is a 40th percentile estimate for a 2 bedroom across a whole ZIP code, so it says nothing about condition, bedroom count, parking, or the block. It does not know the payment standard your local authority adopted, or whether they have approved an exception. And it does not know whether the unit passes inspection. Treat the answer as a reason to make the call, not as the call.
Pencilwrite turns an address, a price, and these rents into a full underwrite, cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR, true ROE, taxes, and an offer you can send. Limited beta access spots open. Sign up for the beta, opening in the next two months. Free.
