Below market rate (BMR) housing: what it means and how to apply

Below market rate (BMR) housing is an apartment or home whose rent or price the city keeps lower than similar places nearby. Only households under an income limit, the most a household of your size can earn, can rent or buy one. You apply for each home through the city or the company it hires to sell or rent its BMR homes, often by lottery, a random drawing.

What does below market rate mean?

"Below market rate" describes the price. The city sets a rent or a sale price lower than what similar places cost, and only households under the income limit can rent or buy. The label is most common in California.

Most BMR homes come from city rules that make builders set aside some apartments or homes in new buildings at lower prices. In San Francisco, BMR is another name for the city's Inclusionary Housing Program, which covers both rentals and homes for sale. San Francisco says its BMR homes for sale are usually condos in buildings where most homes sell at the regular price.

Outside California, homes like these are often called inclusionary housing. BMR homes are also one kind of income-restricted housing, the wider group of homes that only households under an income limit can rent or buy. Our guides to income-restricted apartments and inclusionary housing explain them.

Are BMR homes rentals or for sale?

Both exist, and they are separate, with separate applications. Cupertino is an example. Its BMR rentals are for households with very low and low incomes. Its BMR homes for sale are for households that earn more than its rentals allow, up to a higher limit. San Francisco also has both kinds, and some of its rentals keep a waitlist, a list of people who move in as apartments come free.

So check which kind a listing is before you apply. Some BMR listings are rentals, some are new homes for sale and some are homes an owner is reselling.

How do the rules differ from city to city?

Each city writes its own rules, so the same label can mean a very different process.

Our San Francisco page and Bay Area page show BMR listings open in the region now.

How do you apply for BMR housing?

There is no single BMR application. Find the city, or the company it hires to sell or rent its BMR homes, then follow its steps. Most cities use one of three ways:

• A lottery for each listing. San Francisco gives each application a random number. It then moves people with a preference, a rule that puts certain groups first, ahead of the others. In San Francisco, the preferences are for people who live or used to live in the city. Results are posted within a week. When the city or its leasing or sales agent asks for your financial documents, send them fast, or the city can skip to the next household. Our guide to how housing lotteries work shows each step.
• A waitlist you renew. Palo Alto asks you to send a new application each July. Cupertino asks everyone, including people already on its list, to apply again each October.
• An application for each home. Dublin posts each home for sale. To apply, you email the city a prequalification form and a lender's preapproval, a letter saying how much a bank will lend you. Dublin invites the applicant with the most Dublin preference points first. You get points for living or working in Dublin, for public service work in Dublin, for being 62 or older and for a permanent disability. Dublin uses a random drawing when no one has points or there is a tie.

Before you start, the qualify check shows which income limits your household fits.

What is the catch with a BMR home?

You pay a lower price now, and in return the price stays limited when you sell. San Francisco says BMR homes are resold at below-market prices to the next buyers who qualify, and the owner must work with the city to set the price. Its rules last for the life of the property. Palo Alto says an owner who wants to sell must first offer the city the chance to buy the home. Dublin's buyers sign an agreement that limits the resale price, as its buyer's guide explains.

You also have to live there. San Francisco and Dublin both require owners to live in the home as their main home, and San Francisco doesn't let owners rent it out. BMR condos also charge homeowner association dues, a monthly fee for the building's shared upkeep, and San Francisco warns that those dues can rise faster than inflation. For help with a down payment, see our guide to California first-time home buyer programs.

Worked example: reading a real BMR listing

Each home on Dublin's homeownership page gives the price, who can buy, the income limits, how to apply and the resale rules. Here is how one two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo listed in 2026 read:

1. Price: $443,186, the resale price the city set.
2. Who can buy: first-time buyers, in a household of 2–4 people.
3. Income limit: $156,300 for two people, $175,800 for three and $195,350 for four.
4. How to apply: email the city a prequalification form and a lender's preapproval letter. The city invites the applicant with the most Dublin preference points first.
5. After you buy: live there as your main home, and expect a resale limit when you sell.

Those limits were for that one home. One-bedroom homes listed at the same time were for households of 1–2 people, with a limit of $136,750 for one person, so the household sizes and limits change with the home. Check the city's page for the homes it lists now.

To find BMR homes and rentals you can apply for, browse our listings, and confirm the details with the office named on each listing before you apply.