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Utilities included in rent

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AHS

Rachel Drew (rdrew@gsd.harvard.edu) asks:

>>I'm wondering if there is a standard methodology, or one that other users have
found appropriate, for identifying rental units with utilities included in the
contract rent. Do you only count those with both heat/fuel and electricity
included, or units with either utility included, or some other qualifiers. Is
the reporting of included utilities considered pretty reliable, or subject to a
high degree of mis-reporting?<<

In the AHS we ask and report each fuel individually, along with trash pickup and water service. You can look in the codebook for the variables that start with "BUY."

I don't know the answer to the second part of your question. Table Y of Appendix D of the AHS reports (also available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs01/appendixd.pdf ) shows the results of reinterview checks of selected AHS items, but the BUY variable questons aren't included. That probably means that those items weren't included in the reinterviews. The text of the appendix says that the items included were those thought to be inconsistent, and so the absence of the BUY variables is at least a weak indicator of consistency. (Perhaps one of my colleagues at Census will chime in with more information.)

Dav Vandenbroucke
Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-708-1060 ext. 5890