HUD FY 2012 NATIONAL Proposed FMR's: 70% of Areas Would Have Decreased FMR's, More than Triple the Number of Areas with Decreases Last Year.

I figured out a way to download the Excel national file from HUD website with proposed FY 2012 Fair Market Rents (link on HUD web page as of mid Friday was to wrong file).

Using that data, I have put together two tables HERE that show 

1. The number and percentages of areas within a state with increases, decreases, and no change. 
2. The number and percentages of areas within each HUD Region with increases, decreases, and no change. 

Some observations: 

• 70% (3,318) of all areas (4,765) have proposed decreases in Fair Market Rents. 
• Data is not in these tables but my quick count of FY 2011 data shows only 1,025/22% of areas had decreases from prior year so the 70% of areas with proposed reductions for FY 2012 IS more than 3 times the share of areas with decreases from last year.
• HUD Region 4 has the highest % of areas with FY 2012 proposed decreases, 80%; HUD Region 7 has the lowest percentage of proposed decreases at 50%.
• In HUD Region 10, 78% of areas have proposed reductions; the state within Region 10 with the highest % of areas with proposed reductions is Idaho with 86%.(Oregon is at 78%).
• Data is not in the table , but I calculate that the national median change between the FY 2011 final 2 BR FMR's and the proposed FY 2012 2 BR FMR's is a reduction of 2.5%, or $18 per month.This contrasts with my calculation that last year the median was a 1.1% increase of $8 per unit per month.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.