Skip to main content

AHS: 32 Years of Housing Data

HUD.GOV HUDUser.gov
eList
AHS
A new report, "32 Years of Housing Data," is available for download from
the HUD USER web site, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html
.  You can find the report in the "AHS Based Analyses" section of that
page.

This report uses the national American Housing Surveys from 1973 through
2005 to take a long view of how the American housing stock has changed
over the past three decades.  Aimed at a general audience, it is filled
with color graphs and tables that demonstrate the changing
characteristics of the housing units in which we live.  This document
will make a useful supplement for anyone teaching a class in urban
studies, housing, or similar subjects.  Nonprofit, trade, and advocacy
groups may want to keep it on hand to show their stakeholders just how
much things have changed and the directions of current trends.

The appendix tables will also be useful to data analysts.  Have you ever
found yourself going through volume after volume of the AHS reports,
just to pull out one or two numbers from each in order to construct a
time series?  The appendices save you the trouble.  While they certainly
don't contain every statistic in the AHS reports, the main housing
indicators are all organized by year, ready to be copied from the PDF
and pasted into your spreadsheet.

This report was written by Frederick J. Eggers and Alexander Thackeray
of Econometrica, Inc., under contract with HUD.

The table of contents is listed below.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-402-5890

Introduction
The American Housing Survey
Size, Location, and Status of the Housing Stock
Structural Characteristics of Units
Quality of the Housing Stock
Housing Costs
Home Values and Mortgage Financing
Neighborhood Conditions
Commuting Patterns
Characteristics of Households and Householders
Future Trends in Housing
Appendix: Supplemental Tables