DOI: 10.6077/f69z-wr59
title: Residential Finance Survey, 2001

description: &lt;p&gt;PI-provided abstract: The Census Bureau took the Residential Finance Survey (RFS) as part of the decennial census from 1950-2000. The RFS is the only survey designed to collect and produce data about the financing of nonfarm, privately-owned residential properties. The RFS is a unique survey for several reasons: It collects, tabulates, and presents data for properties, the standard unit of reference for financial transactions related to housing. In most other demographic surveys, the unit of reference is the person, household, or housing unit. It is the only source of information on property, mortgage, and financial characteristics for multi-unit rental properties. Information on multi-family loans and properties is particularly difficult to obtain, but is important to understand if progress is to be made in the development of standards for underwriting multi-family mortgages. It conducts interviews of property owners and mortgage lenders, resulting in more accurate information on property and mortgage characteristics. The RFS is the only survey which is able to provide a comprehensive view of mortgage finance in the USA, by providing information not only about the loan itself from the lender, but also information about the property owner's demographic characteristics. As part of the decennial census, it is mandatory. This is important in collecting information from mortgage lenders. The RFS is exempt from statutes prohibiting release of financial records by financial institutions. It is able to subdivide the industry into relevant components. Different parts of the industry have excellent information on their own loans and clients, but not that of the industry as a whole. Information on lending by individual investors or small groups of investors such as pension funds is collected only by the RFS.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Residential Finance Survey
description: collection_notes: "We selected the sample for the 2001 RFS from Census 2000 address records and stratified based on the number of units at the address and other characteristics of the units as recorded in the Decennial Census 2000. Approximately 68,000 addresses were selected."

"The 2001 RFS was both a centralized mail-out/mail-back operation conducted by the Census Bureau's National Processing Center (NPC) in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and a field data collection operation conducted by our twelve Regional Offices. The enumeration of property owners took place mainly in the months of April through August 2001, and that of the lenders in August through December of that year.

Field interviewing for property owners occurred for cases in which the owner was either not identified or failed to respond to the original mailed questionnaire and follow-up letters, and for those cases sent directly to the field. Follow-up interviewing of lenders occurred in two stages. For financial institutions, that is, banks, insurance companies, and so on, follow-up telephone inquiries were made. If the lenders had not received the initial mailout questionnaires, new documents were mailed to them. Follow-up for mortgages held by individuals involved a personal visit by field representatives from the 12 census regional offices."