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RE: AHS: Opinions sought on proposed changes.

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Dav----

We use the structural condition variables quite a bit, especially in hedonic
regression work.
There is a strong, negative correlation between gross rents/ house values
and those
variables (especially EMISSR, ESAGR, EMISSW, EBROKE)---which is not true of
most of the items
used in the ZADEQ definitions. Also, the ZADEQ definitions have been in
place for a long time
without having been critically examined, and I wouldn't like to see
variables dropped
that could provide alternate assessments of unit quality. It's possible
that the three-question
alternative could work in our regressions and related applications, but then
you have the issue of
the post-2003 survey results not being comparable to the four from
1997-2003.
So I favor not changing the questions.

Paul Emrath
Assistant Staff Vice President
Housing Policy Research
National Association of Home Builders
1201 15th Street, NW, Washington DC 20005
Phone: 202-266-8449 Fax: 202-266-8426
Email: pemrath@nahb.com <mailto:pemrath@nahb.com>


At 01:53 PM 06/03/2003 -0400, ahslistserv@huduser.gov wrote:
>From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.gov>
>
>We are working on changes to the content of the 2005 national survey. As I
>have mentioned here before, the 2005 survey will feature sampling
improvements
>designed to do a better job of reaching manufactured housing and assisted
>living units. We are also going to make some changes to the income module
>because of what Scott Susin found in his recent paper comparing AHS and CPS
>income meas ures.
>
>While we're at it, we are looking at a few other areas to see if we can
>rephrase questions to make them work better, and we are considering
dropping
>some questions that don't yield useful information. I would like your
opinion
>on one of these proposed changes.
>
>We have a series of questions about structural conditions. At one time
these
>were "observation" items, in which the interviewer would fill in the answer
>based on what he saw. After 1997, they became respondent questions. They
are
>not used in the ZADEQ recode of "adequate housing." We are considering
>dropping them to reduce respondent burden. These are the variables:
>
>EMISSR: missing roof materials
>EHOLER: holes in roof
>ESAGR: sagging roof
>EMISSW: missing wall materials
>ESLOPW: sloping walls
>EBOARD: windows boarded up
>EBROKE: broken windows
>EBAR: windows covered with metal bars
>ECRUMB: crumbling foundation
>
>An alternative to dropping these completely would be to replace them with
three
>questions, one each on roofs, windows, and walls.
>
>Are the current questions important to anyone's work? Would the proposed
>alternative do as well? Please reply to me or to the mailing list, as you
>like. Remember, to reply to the mailing list you have to include
>ahs@huduser.gov in your address header.
>
>Oh, by the way: the 2003 survey goes into the field today!
>
>Dav Vandenbroucke
>Economist
>U.S. Dept. HUD
>david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
>202-708-1060 ext. 5890