Landlord Rent Reasonableness Determination

Housing Choice Voucher / Landlords

Whenever a new rental unit is made available to a Housing Choice Voucher Program participant, the Landlord’s first question is – How much is the rent going to be? Our response is usually another question – How much do you want?

And so the rent negotiation process begins…. We would like to bring new units into the programs at the Landlord’s requested rental rate. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. In negotiating rental rates, the MHA must consider the following factors:

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1. The Fair Market Rent (FMR) and Payment Standard
2. The size of the unit based on the number of bedrooms
3. The utilities and other services paid by the tenant
4. Rent Reasonableness

HUD establishes a “Fair Market Rent” (“FMR”) for each bedroom size for use in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. There is a published rate for efficiencies, one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom and four bedroom units. Then MHA sets the Payment Standard. The level at which the payment standard amount is set directly affects the amount of subsidy a family will receive and the amount of rent paid by participant. The current Payment Standard schedule for the MHA can be found in the attachment section of this manual.

Furthermore, the FMR’s represent rental rates that include all utilities. Therefore, if the family is responsible for a utility or service, this will, in turn, reduce the FMR by an allowance given to the family to offset their utility expense. 

If the owner’s proposed rent falls within or above the FMR for the appropriate bedroom size, as adjusted for tenant paid utilities and services, the next step is to make a rent reasonableness determination. Determining rent reasonableness is simply HUD-talk for conducting a private market survey. We must determine whether the proposed rental rate is reasonable, based on the rents charged for comparable units in the unassisted market and also determine the family’s ability to pay any difference. The payment standard is used to calculate the HAP paid by the MHA to the owner on behalf of the family.

Although the Housing Choice Voucher Program is not governed by the FMR, we still make a rent reasonableness determination to ensure that the rent is fair and consistent with the private market, as well as determining that the family will not undergo a rent burden for this initial period. A rent burden determination is made on all initial leases.

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Hopefully, upon completion of the rent negotiation process, the proposed rental rate will have been approved. Sometimes though, this will not be the case. However, we believe the advantages of renting your unit through the Housing Choice Programs will far outweigh a small variance in the requested rental rate.

​Hopefully, upon completion of the rent negotiation process, the proposed rental rate will have been approved. Sometimes though, this will not be the case. However, we believe the advantages of renting your unit through the Housing Choice Programs will far outweigh a small variance in the requested rental rate.

Marin Housing has partnered with affordablehousing.com, which provides an enhanced program to list rental properties on line. Listings are available to potential Housing Choice Voucher tenants seeking apartment units, duplexes, single-family homes or townhomes in the private market.