American Housing Survey (AHS)

The AHS is a Housing Unit Survey

The AHS is a longitudinal housing unit survey that asks questions about the quality of housing in the United States. Returning to the same housing units every other year to gather data, this survey allows users the unique opportunity to analyze housing and household changes over long periods of time. In gathering information, Census Bureau interviewers visit or telephone the household occupying each housing unit in the sample. For unoccupied units, they obtain information from landlords, rental agents, or neighbors. The survey is redesigned from time to time to make sure it meets current needs and new topics are introduced for specific survey years.

Survey Design

In the past, the AHS was two surveys conducted independently of one another. The National survey was enumerated every other odd-numbered year, while the Metropolitan survey occurred in selected areas on a rotating basis. Starting in 2007, the National and Metropolitan surveys were conducted in the same time-period to reduce costs. Although they were collected simultaneously, the resulting data were not pooled to produce a single set of estimates. The national cases were used for regional- and national-level estimates, while the metropolitan cases were used for specific-area estimates.

In 2009, a supplemental sample of housing units in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia were combined with the existing National sample in these areas to produce metropolitan level estimates. Only Seattle and New Orleans were stand-alone Metropolitan surveys.

In the 2011 AHS, all metropolitan area samples will be combined with the National survey sample. Estimates for 29 metropolitan areas will be produced for 2011. Preliminary data will be available December 2012.

Sample Selection and Size

Housing units participating in the AHS have been scientifically selected to represent a cross section of all housing in the nation. The same basic sample of housing units is interviewed every two years until a new sample is selected. The U.S. Census Bureau updates the sample by adding newly constructed housing units and units discovered through coverage improvement efforts.

Each housing unit in the AHS national sample is weighted and represents about 2,000 housing units in the United States. The weighting is designed to minimize sampling error and utilize independent estimates of occupied and vacant housing units. Information regarding the sample size and response rate can be found in National Report-Appendix B [PDF - 16K] . For metro survey methodology, see Metro Report-Appendix B [PDF - 16K] .

Due to the pooling of the national and metropolitan samples for the upcoming 2011 AHS, the sample will now include approximately 190,000 housing units. From this total, 148,000 addresses are returning to be interviewed again and 42,000 addresses are new to the survey. Since there will be no separate metropolitan area sample in 2011, 64,750 national sample units will be supplemented with 120,000 sample units selected from 29 metropolitan areas, bringing the sample size in each of the metropolitan areas to approximately 4,500 housing units. The 2011 sample also includes an additional 5,250 subsidized housing units selected from a sample of HUD administrative records.

Sampling Errors

The data in this report are subject to error from sampling and other causes, such as incomplete data and wrong answers. Appendix D [PDF - 16K] contains a complete description of the types of errors and provides formulas for constructing confidence intervals.