AHS: Updates on HUD USER

AHS: Updates on HUD USER

The HUD USER web site has been updated with several resources related to the American Housing Survey (AHS):

• The Components of Inventory Change (CINCH) and Rental Dynamics reports for the metropolitan areas featured in the 2011 AHS. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/cinch.html

• The CINCH and Rental Dynamics datasets associated with these metropolitan reports, at the same URL.

• The 2009-2011 CINCH and Rental Dynamics dataset associated with the national AHS.  https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/cinch.html#2009-2011  Note that the 2009-2011 national CINCH and Rental Dynamics reports have been available at this URL for some time.

• The 2013 national Housing Affordability Data System (HADS) dataset. http://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/hads/hads.html

• The 2013 metropolitan HADS dataset, at the same URL.

What are these things?

CINCH uses the longitudinal features of the AHS to track changes in housing units over time.  You can use it to see what happened to housing units that existed in the beginning period by the ending period (forward-looking analysis) or to see what the status of units existing in the ending period was in the earlier period (backward-looking analysis).  The CINCH datasets include codes for these status changes and longitudinally consistent weights.  The records can be linked to the standard AHS public use files (PUFs).

HADS files include recoded AHS variables that measure the affordability of housing units in the survey and classify households by income and housing cost burden.  These files can be linked to the standard AHS PUFs.

Rental Dynamics combines the information in CINCH and HADS to trace the changes in affordability of the rental housing stock, quantifying such concepts and filtering and gentrification.  The CINCH datasets also include codes for changes in affordability.

Given that it has been a subject of discussion on this list recently, I want to point out that the HADS datasets include the income limits (L30, L50, L80) and fair market rent (FMR) for each housing unit.  Thus, if you need these for the metro AHS, this may be a more convenient way to obtain them.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
451 7th Street SW, Room 8222
Washington, DC 20410

Email david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov
Phone 202-402-5890