You
are here: Economic Programs Overview 
Construction
Survey of Construction To provide current regional statistics on starts and completions of new single- and multi-family housing units and sales of new one-family houses. The United States Code, Title 13, authorizes this survey and provides for voluntary responses. The Department of Housing and Urban Development partially funds this survey.
New residential buildings currently authorized by a building permit or started in areas not requiring a building permit.
Data collected include start date, completion date, sales date, sales price (one-family houses only), and physical characteristics of each housing unit, such as square footage and number of bedrooms.
Monthly housing starts estimates since 1959, new home sales since 1963, and housing completions since 1968. Reported data are for building or sales activity taking place during the prior calendar month. Data collection begins the first day after the reference month and continues for about 7 days.
Monthly telephone or personal interviews of about 2,500 builders, or owners of about 14,000 selected buildings. To provide nationwide coverage of building activity, a multi-stage stratified random sample procedure was used to select some 900 building permit-issuing offices, and a sample of more than 70 land areas not covered by building permits.
Each month, a sample of residential building permits is selected from each of the permit offices. The probability of selecting a permit is proportional to the number of units authorized by the permit. All permits authorizing buildings with 5 or more housing units are selected. Each month, field representatives road canvass each of the non-permit land areas to identify new buildings, and all new residential buildings found are selected for the survey.
Once a permit or building is selected, its owner or builder is contacted by telephone or personal interview each month as necessary. Contact continues until the project is completed, abandoned, or sold. Each month, interviews are required for about half of the approximately 5,000 respondents representing 28,000 buildings currently being followed up.
Each month, housing starts, completions and sales estimates derived from this survey are adjusted by the total numbers of authorized housing units (obtained from the Building Permits Survey) to develop national and regional estimates. Estimates are adjusted to reflect variations by region and type of construction, and to account for late reports and houses started or sold in advance of a permit. Reported data are seasonally adjusted.
New Residential Construction press releases are issued on or about the 12th workday following the reference month. The reports contain the first available preliminary monthly estimates of the number of housing units started, authorized but not started, under construction, and completed. Revised figures for previous months are also included. Data are shown by type of structure, at the national level and by Census region. Quarterly data on selected characteristics of housing units started and completed are included. All data are placed on the Census website at: www.census.gov/const/www/newresconstindex.html
New Residential Sales press releases are issued on or about the 18th workday following the reference month. Included are estimates, and revisions for previous months, of new houses sold and for sale at the national and Census region level, and average and median sales prices. More detailed data on sales prices and a price index of new houses sold are included quarterly. All data are placed on the Census website at: www.census.gov/const/www/newressalesindex.html .
Detailed annual data on characteristics of housing units completed and sold, by Census region, are available on the Census web-site at www.census.gov/const/www/charindex.html.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses the estimates in development of the national income and product accounts. The Federal Reserve Board and Council of Economic Advisers use the estimates to determine the condition of the economy. The Department of Housing and Urban Development uses the estimates to develop and evaluate housing programs.
Manufacturers use estimates to plan production schedules and establish market shares. Insurance companies use estimates to adjust rates and establish replacement costs. Financial institutions use data to estimate mortgage demand.
Provides two designated principal economic indicators and the most current source of data on housing starts, completions, and sales.
Value of New Construction
Put in Place
Survey of New Manufactured
(Mobile) Homes
EXPLORE INFORMATION |
|
CONTINUE OVERVIEW |
|
||
|
You are here: Economic Programs Overview
Construction Survey
of ConstructionLast revised: Thursday, 27-Jul-2006 10:39:15 EDT
