2026 metro edition
Where does rent cover the cost of owning?
Illustrative cash budgets using HUD FY2027 two-bedroom gross rents and ACS 2024 owner-stock values. Explore every metro in the available one-year Census universe and the different HUD rent areas inside it.
These are scenarios, not observed investment returns. Rent and value describe different housing populations. Every rate and operating cost below is a chosen assumption; replace it with property-specific evidence before making a decision.
Which assumptions change the answer?
Cash purchase assumes no loan. Zero costs in a case are assumptions, not evidence of absence. Edited inputs remain in this browser; the chart sends no inputs to a server.
Compare cash-budget ranges
| Metro | HUD areas | Range around zero | Annual cash surplus (USD) |
|---|
Current-scenario download includes every filtered metro, all assumption values and unresolved inputs. Print includes every filtered row, beyond the current screen page.
| HUD area | Source code | Two-bedroom gross rent/month | Scenario surplus/year |
|---|
What does this calculation include?
Cash receipts = (HUD gross rent − chosen monthly utilities) × paid months. Management is deducted from those receipts. The annual budget includes chosen property tax, insurance, maintenance reserve, HOA, other costs and mortgage insurance, plus loan principal and interest. Taxes and insurance are counted once; the loan payment excludes escrow.
Break-even gross monthly rent = utilities + (fixed annual budget + annual principal/interest) ÷ [paid months × (1 − management fraction)]. At zero paid months, that threshold is undefined. A negative surplus stays negative; incomplete or invalid inputs are never replaced with zero.
Why show a range?
A Census metro can contain multiple HUD rent areas. We retain every distinct area, instead of averaging or selecting the central one. The chart's endpoints are their calculated scenarios, not the lowest/highest observed rents. The same metro owner-stock value proxy is used for each area; it is not a matched rental-property price.
The owner-value margin of error is retained. Price-minus-MOE and price-plus-MOE sensitivity endpoints are shown in detail and downloads; they are not a confidence interval for cash surplus. County membership agrees in 392 metros. St. Louis retains HUD's statutory Sullivan City/Crawford County exception. County agreement does not certify town-level equivalence.
What remains outside the budget?
Acquisition and sale costs, initial repairs, down-payment opportunity cost, appreciation, income tax, depreciation benefits, refinancing, rent growth and future capital surprises. Maintenance is an earmarked reserve, not a realized annual expense. Principal repayment affects cash and equity; surplus is not accounting profit or total return.
Sources and downloads
- HUD Fair Market Rents — FY2027
- HUD methodology — June 2026, geography pages 1–4
- Census ACS 2024 one-year B25077 — owner value and margin of error
- July 2023 county delineation
- CFPB payment components
- All three fixed scenarios CSV · All HUD-area details CSV
Federal output reuse follows the agencies' published policies, with third-party exceptions retained. Original code is MIT; input data is not relicensed MIT. Agency names indicate sources, not endorsement. Download reproducible code, inputs and citation metadata. Read the code and citation file on GitHub. The planned 29 October 2026 ACS 2025 release will be checked for the next refresh.
HUD reuse policy, section 1D · Census public-access policy.
Use the next decision check
Rental yield versus cash flow · The rental-yield film · Property-specific cash-flow calculator
Study and original code by Ahmadreza Samadi · Full method and study. Sources: HUD FY2027 / ACS 2024. Illustrative cash budgets, not investment returns.