# StayRentals

> Rent smarter with real data.

StayRentals is a rental market data and cost-of-living comparison platform for the United States. It helps renters compare cities using official government data from HUD Fair Market Rents, the Census American Community Survey, and the BLS Consumer Price Index.

## What StayRentals provides

- Rental cost data for 500+ US cities, all 50 states, and Washington D.C.
- City-vs-city cost of living comparisons
- Rent affordability calculators
- Fair market rent breakdowns by bedroom count
- National rent CPI trends
- Guides and glossary for rental terminology
- Income-restricted apartment building directory: every LIHTC, Section 8 project-based, Section 202 senior, and Section 811 disability building tracked by HUD, mapped per city, with HUD AMI eligibility tiers, Small Area FMR, and EIA utility-cost estimates layered on top

## Data sources

- HUD Fair Market Rents: official rent benchmarks by county and metro area
- HUD LIHTC: Low-Income Housing Tax Credit project database (placed-in-service buildings)
- HUD Insured Multifamily: Section 8 project-based, Section 202 senior, Section 811 disability properties
- HUD Income Limits: Area Median Income (AMI) tiers — extremely low (≤30% AMI), very low (≤50%), low (≤80%) by metro/county
- Census ACS: median rent, income, rent burden, vacancy rates, demographics
- BLS CPI: rent inflation trends, shelter cost index
- EIA: state residential electricity (¢/kWh, average monthly bill) and natural-gas ($/Mcf) prices, surfaced as utility-cost estimates on top of contract rent

## Important notes

- StayRentals is not a real estate agent, landlord, or property manager.
- All content is for educational and informational purposes only.
- Content is AI-assisted and human-reviewed.
- Government data may have a 1-2 year lag depending on the source.

## Site structure

- /rentals/[state]/[city]: city rental profiles
- /rentals/[state]: state rental overviews
- /compare/[city-a]-vs-[city-b]: city comparisons
- /calculators: rent and cost of living calculators
- /guides: rental guides and advice
- /methodology: data sourcing details
- /affordable-rentals: national hub for income-restricted housing — total buildings tracked, top cities by count, national 2BR FMR median
- /affordable-rentals/[state]: per-state hub listing top cities by tracked income-restricted building count
- /affordable-rentals/[state]/[city]: per-city map + cards of every income-restricted building, with FMR, AMI eligibility tiers, and EIA utility-cost paragraph
- /affordable-rentals/property/[hud_id]: per-building detail page (address, geo, unit mix, federal program participation). Vacancy and pricing for individual units are not tracked — these pages describe building-level federal-program participation

## Contact

https://stayrentals.com/contact