Market screen · county data · updated October 18, 2026
Buffalo, NY: a typical house comes in at 0.87x; houses under about $160,500 clear 1.20x
At the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent ($1,423 a month), a house at the area's typical value ($225,700) has a full monthly payment of $1,638: principal and interest on a 75% loan at 7.5% over 30 years, plus property tax and insurance. The rent covers 0.87x of it. At the 3-bedroom figure ($1,732) it would be 1.06x. Run the house you are looking at on its own rent.
The numbers
Typical home value
$225,700
County medians weighted by households (Census ACS).
Rent: HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent
$1,423
A government floor, not a house rent.
Rent: HUD 3-bedroom Fair Market Rent
$1,732
The high end of the range.
Payment that clears 1.20x
$1,186
Rent ÷ 1.20, taxes and insurance included.
Price that clears 1.20x
$160,500
At this rent, 25% down, 7.5%, 30 years.
Rent-to-price
7.6%
A year of rent over the typical value.
Effective property tax
2.02%
Median tax over median value, owner-occupied homes (Census ACS); a rental can be taxed higher.
Insurance, median
$880 a year
What owners report paying (Census ACS); a landlord policy can differ.
Rental vacancy
3.9%
Unemployment
4.5%
Jobs up 1.4% over a year (federal labor statistics).
New homes permitted
3 per 1,000 households
Census Building Permits, latest year.
Flood insurance claims
483
NFIP claims since 2005 across the area's counties.
The typical house, worked out
| Price | $225,700 |
| Loan (75%) | $169,275 |
| Principal and interest (7.5%, 30 years) | $1,184 |
| Property tax | $380 |
| Insurance | $74 |
| Full monthly payment | $1,638 |
| Rent (HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent) | $1,423 |
| DSCR: rent ÷ full payment | 0.87x |
DSCR is the monthly rent divided by the full monthly payment. We use 1.20x as a cushion; many DSCR lenders accept as low as 1.00x. A lender sizes the loan on the lease or the appraiser's rent estimate for the specific house, often the lower of the two, not on an area figure.
The 2 counties in this area
- Erie County, NY409,665 households
- Niagara County, NY91,884 households
How this screen is made
A market screen is built from official county data only: the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent and its 3-bedroom figure, Census household-survey values, taxes, insurance and vacancy, Census building permits, federal unemployment statistics and NFIP flood claims. It updates when those sources do. Owner-occupied homes can carry a homestead exemption or assessment cap that a rental does not get, so a rental's tax can run higher, notably in states such as Florida and Texas. It carries no monthly interpretation; markets with a monthly hub get that on their own page. The rent is the HUD 2-bedroom Fair Market Rent, which can sit below what a single-family house rents for, so the ratio here is cautious.