Housing · Consumer Price Index
Rent of primary residence
The rent tenants actually pay for the home they live in — the CPI's tenant-rent measure.
Rent of primary residence tracks the rents tenant households actually pay for the housing unit they live in. Unlike owners' equivalent rent, it is a real transaction price. It samples all tenants — continuing leases as well as new ones — so it moves more slowly than asking-rent indexes that only capture newly signed leases: when market rents jump, the CPI rent measure catches up over the following year or two as existing leases roll over.
Its payment-standard cousin is HUD's Fair Market Rent (FMR): where CPI rent measures how fast rents are changing, FMR estimates the dollar level of rent — the 40th-percentile gross rent for each county and metro, used to set Housing Choice Voucher payment standards. Use the CPI series to see the trajectory of rents and FMR to see what rent actually costs in a specific place; pumsdata carries both datasets.
Also known as: tenant rent, contract rent, CPI rent.
Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). pumsdata is not affiliated with BLS.
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Rent of primary residence — FAQ
What is rent of primary residence in inflation data?+
The rent tenants actually pay for the home they live in — the CPI's tenant-rent measure. Rent of primary residence tracks the rents tenant households actually pay for the housing unit they live in. Unlike owners' equivalent rent, it is a real transaction price. It samples all tenants — continuing leases as well as new ones — so it moves more slowly than asking-rent indexes that only capture newly signed leases: when market rents jump, the CPI rent measure catches up over the following year or two as existing leases roll over.
Why does rent of primary residence matter?+
Its payment-standard cousin is HUD's Fair Market Rent (FMR): where CPI rent measures how fast rents are changing, FMR estimates the dollar level of rent — the 40th-percentile gross rent for each county and metro, used to set Housing Choice Voucher payment standards. Use the CPI series to see the trajectory of rents and FMR to see what rent actually costs in a specific place; pumsdata carries both datasets.
Where does this inflation data come from?+
All figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) — verbatim monthly index values from 1997 to the present for the U.S. city average, census regions, and about two dozen metro areas, with percent changes derived from the indexes. pumsdata is an independent product that makes the data easy to chart and compare, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by BLS.