American Housing Survey (AHS)

The AHS is sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The survey is the most comprehensive national housing survey in the United States.

The AHS provides current information on a wide range of housing subjects, including size and composition of the nation’s housing inventory, vacancies, physical condition of housing units, characteristics of occupants, indicators of housing and neighborhood quality, mortgages and other housing costs, persons eligible for and beneficiaries of assisted housing, home values, and characteristics of recent movers.

Beginning with the 2011 AHS, the survey instrument will consist of a permanent core questionnaire plus topical supplements that will rotate in and out of the questionnaire on a yet to be determined schedule.

The 2011 AHS included topical supplements on potential health and safety hazards in the home and modifications made to assist occupants living with disabilities. Mortgage questions were redesigned, while selected neighborhood and journey to work questions were dropped from the 2011 survey altogether.

There was no AHS-Metropolitan Sample in the 2011 survey. Instead, a supplemental sample of housing units was selected for 29 metropolitan areas. This supplemental sample was combined with the National Sample in these areas in order to produce metropolitan estimates using the National survey. The 2011 sample also includes an oversample of assisted housing units, drawn from HUD administrative records.

• Metropolitan Area Summary Data
• Metropolitan Area Briefs
• National Summary Report and Tables
• National and Metropolitan Area data available on American FactFinder