HUD Fair Market Rents & Income Limits Scraper

Extract Fair Market Rents (FMR) and Income Limits data from the official HUD User API for any US state. Get detailed housing affordability data broken down by county, including rent amounts for efficiency through 4-bedroom units and income thresholds by family size.

This Actor is designed for data engineers at proptech startups, affordable housing analytics teams, government contractors, and anyone building applications that rely on HUD housing data. Instead of manually downloading spreadsheets from HUD, automate your data pipeline with structured JSON output ready for databases, dashboards, or RAG pipelines.

Key Features

• Fair Market Rents by County — Efficiency, 1BR, 2BR, 3BR, and 4BR rent amounts for every county in a state
• Income Limits by County — Very Low (50% AMI), Extremely Low (30% AMI), and Low (80% AMI) income thresholds for family sizes 1-8
• State-Level Batch Retrieval — Fetch all counties in a state with a single configuration
• Flexible Data Types — Choose Fair Market Rents only, Income Limits only, or both in a single run
• Historical Data — Access data from fiscal years 2017 through 2026
• Clean Flat Records — Output is flattened into simple JSON records, not nested API responses
• Rate Limited — Built-in 500ms delays between requests to respect HUD API limits

Output Data Fields

Fair Market Rents

Field	Type	Description
dataType	string	Always "fairMarketRents"
countyName	string	County name
stateCode	string	Two-letter state code
fips	string	FIPS county code
areaName	string	HUD Fair Market Rent area name
year	number	Fiscal year
efficiency	number	Monthly rent for efficiency/studio unit ($)
oneBedroom	number	Monthly rent for 1-bedroom unit ($)
twoBedroom	number	Monthly rent for 2-bedroom unit ($)
threeBedroom	number	Monthly rent for 3-bedroom unit ($)
fourBedroom	number	Monthly rent for 4-bedroom unit ($)
smallAreaFmr	boolean	Whether Small Area FMRs apply
metroStatus	string	Metro or non-metro area designation

Income Limits

Field	Type	Description
dataType	string	Always "incomeLimits"
countyName	string	County name
stateCode	string	Two-letter state code
fips	string	FIPS county code
areaName	string	HUD area name
year	number	Fiscal year
medianIncome	number	Area median family income ($)
veryLowIncome1Person - veryLowIncome8Person	number	50% AMI threshold by family size ($)
extremelyLowIncome1Person - extremelyLowIncome8Person	number	30% AMI threshold by family size ($)
lowIncome1Person - lowIncome8Person	number	80% AMI threshold by family size ($)

How to Scrape HUD Fair Market Rents Data

Step 1: Get a Free HUD API Token

1. Go to https://www.huduser.gov/hudapi/register
2. Fill in your name and email
3. You will receive an API token via email (usually within minutes)
4. This token is free and required for all API access

Step 2: Configure the Actor

1. Enter your HUD API Token in the hudToken field
2. Select the Data Type: Fair Market Rents, Income Limits, or Both
3. Enter a State Code (e.g., VT for Vermont, CA for California)
4. Optionally adjust the Fiscal Year (default: 2024)
5. Set Max Results to limit output (default: 1000, set to 0 for all counties)

Step 3: Run and Export

Click "Start" to run the Actor. Results will appear in the Output tab as a table. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect via the Apify API for automated pipelines.

Input Example

{
    "hudToken": "your-hud-api-token-here",
    "dataType": "fairMarketRents",
    "stateCode": "VT",
    "year": 2024,
    "maxResults": 1000
}

Output Example (Fair Market Rents)

{
    "dataType": "fairMarketRents",
    "countyName": "Chittenden County",
    "stateCode": "VT",
    "fips": "5000799999",
    "areaName": "Burlington-South Burlington, VT HUD Metro FMR Area",
    "year": 2024,
    "efficiency": 1056,
    "oneBedroom": 1183,
    "twoBedroom": 1455,
    "threeBedroom": 1935,
    "fourBedroom": 2157,
    "smallAreaFmr": false,
    "metroStatus": "metro"
}

Output Example (Income Limits)

{
    "dataType": "incomeLimits",
    "countyName": "Chittenden County",
    "stateCode": "VT",
    "fips": "5000799999",
    "areaName": "Burlington-South Burlington, VT MSA",
    "year": 2024,
    "medianIncome": 101200,
    "veryLowIncome1Person": 35400,
    "veryLowIncome2Person": 40450,
    "veryLowIncome3Person": 45500,
    "veryLowIncome4Person": 50550,
    "extremelyLowIncome1Person": 21250,
    "extremelyLowIncome2Person": 24300,
    "extremelyLowIncome3Person": 27350,
    "extremelyLowIncome4Person": 30350,
    "lowIncome1Person": 56600,
    "lowIncome2Person": 64700,
    "lowIncome3Person": 72800,
    "lowIncome4Person": 80850
}

Pricing

This Actor uses a pay-per-result pricing model:

Cost Type	Price
Per result	$0.002
Platform usage	Apify compute costs apply separately

A typical state with ~15 counties costs approximately $0.03 per run for Fair Market Rents only. Running both FMR and Income Limits doubles the record count.

Use Cases

• Proptech Applications — Power rent estimation tools and affordability calculators with official HUD data
• Affordable Housing Analytics — Track Fair Market Rent trends across states and years for policy research
• Government Contractors — Automate HUD data ingestion for Section 8 / Housing Choice Voucher compliance
• Real Estate Investment — Compare actual market rents against HUD FMR benchmarks to identify undervalued markets
• Data Enrichment — Merge HUD income limits with census or property data for comprehensive market analysis

FAQ

Q: Is the HUD API token really free? A: Yes. HUD provides free API access to all Fair Market Rent and Income Limit data. Register at huduser.gov/hudapi/register.

Q: What years are available? A: The API supports fiscal years from approximately 2017 to the current year. Data availability varies by endpoint.

Q: Can I get data for all 50 states at once? A: Run the Actor once per state. You can schedule multiple runs or use the Apify API to orchestrate batch processing across all states.

Q: What is a FIPS code? A: FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) codes are unique identifiers for US counties and states. They are used by HUD and other federal agencies to identify geographic areas.

Legal Disclaimer

This Actor accesses the publicly available HUD User API. Users are responsible for complying with HUD's Terms of Use. The data is public government information. This Actor does not bypass any authentication — users must provide their own free API token.

For issues or feature requests, contact us through the Apify Store.