DOI: 10.3886/icpsr30941.v1
title: American Housing Survey, 2009: National Microdata
title: Version 1

description: This data collection provides information on the characteristics of a national sample of housing units, including apartments, single-family homes, mobile homes, and vacant housing units in 2009. The data are presented in eight separate parts: Part 1, Home Improvement Record, Part 2, Journey to Work Record, Part 3, Mortgages Recorded, Part 4, Housing Unit Record (Main Record), Recodes (One Record per Housing Unit), and Weights, Part 5, Manager and Owner of Rental Units Record, Part 6, Person Record, Part 7, High Burden Unit Record, and Part 8, Recent Mover Groups Record. Part 1 data include questions about upgrades and remodeling, cost of alterations and repairs, as well as the household member who performed the alteration/repair. Part 2 data include journey to work or commuting information, such as method of transportation to work, length of trip, and miles traveled to work. Additional information collected covers number of hours worked at home, number of days worked at home, average time respondent leaves for work in the morning or evening, whether respondent drives to work alone or with others, and a few other questions pertaining to self-employment and work schedule. Part 3 data include mortgage information, such as type of mortgage obtained by respondent, amount and term of mortgages, as well as years needed to pay them off. Other items asked include monthly payment amount, reason mortgage was taken out, and who provided the mortgage. Part 4 data include household-level information, including demographic information, such as age, sex, race, marital status, income, and relationship to householder. The following topics are also included: data recodes, unit characteristics, and weighting information. Part 5 data include information pertaining to owners of rental properties and whether the owner/resident manager lives on-site. Part 6 data include individual person level information, in which respondents were queried on basic demographic information (i.e. age, sex, race, marital status, income, and relationship to householder), as well as if they worked at all last week, month and year moved into residence, and their ability to perform everyday tasks and whether they have difficulty hearing, seeing, and concentrating or remembering things. Part 7 data include verification of income to cost when the ratio of income to cost is outside of certain tolerances. Respondents were asked whether they receive help or assistance with grocery bills, clothing and transportation expenses, child care payments, medical and utility bills, as well as with rent payments. Part 8 data include recent mover information, such as how many people were living in last unit before move, whether last residence was a condo or a co-op, as well as whether this residence was outside of the United States.
description: To provide a current and continuous series of data on selected housing and demographic characteristics.
description: In the past, the American Housing Survey (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. Additional information regarding study design can be found in the "Geography" section within the Original P.I. Documentation (AHS Codebook), or in the Current Housing Reports, 2009 Document under Appendix B, as well as the HUD USER Web site and the United States Census Bureau Web site.
description: The data are not weighted. However, this data collection contains three weight variables, PWT, WEIGHT, and WGT90GEO found in Part 4: Housing Unit Record (Main Record), that should be used in any analysis.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: The weighted overall response rate was 91 percent and the unweighted overall response rate was 89 percent.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Home Improvement Record 
 DS2: Journey to Work Record 
 DS3: Mortgages Record 
 DS4: Housing Unit Record (Main Record), Recodes (One Record per Housing Unit), and Weights 
 DS5: Manager and Owner of Rental Units Record 
 DS6: Person Record 
 DS7: High Burden Unit Record 
 DS8: Recent Mover Groups Record
description: American Housing Survey Series
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) 
The merging variable CONTROL serves as the control code for the housing unit across the eight parts.
 Additional information about the American Housing Survey Series can be found at the HUD USER Web site and the United States Census Bureau Web site.
description: Housing units in the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: primary metropolitan statistical area (PMSA), mostly cities
description: 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 United States 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. Specifically, the 2009 national data are from a sample of housing units interviewed between April and September 2009. Approximately 62,000 housing units were originally selected for interview. The units reduced from the 2007 sample were not included for interview in 2009. However, a supplemental sample of about 6,300 housing units in the Chicago, Detroit, New York, Northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia MSAs was included. About 2,200 of the 62,000 total units included for interview were found to be ineligible because the unit no longer existed or because the unit did not meet the AHS definition of a housing unit. Of the 59,800 eligible sample units, about 6,450 were classified (both occupied and vacant housing units) as "Type A" noninterviews because (a) no one was at home after repeated visits, (b) the respondent refused to be interviewed, or (c) the interviewer was unable to find the unit. Additional information regarding sampling can be found in the "Sample status, weights, interview status" section within the Original P.I. Documentation (AHS Codebook), or in the Current Housing Reports, 2009 Document under Appendix B, as well as the HUD USER Web site and the United States Census Bureau Web site.