DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02912.v1
title: American Housing Survey, 1997: 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. Unlike previous years, the data are presented in nine separate parts: Part 1, Work Done Record (Replacement or Additions to the House), Part 2, Housing Unit Record (Main Record), Part 3, Worker Record, Part 4, Mortgages (Owners Only), Part 5, Manager and Owner Record (Renters Only), Part 6, Person Record, Part 7, Mover Group Record, Part 8, Recodes (One Record per Housing Unit), and Part 9, Weights. Data include year the structure was built, type and number of living quarters, occupancy status, access, number of rooms, presence of commercial establishments on the property, and property value. Additional data focus on kitchen and plumbing facilities, types of heating fuel used, source of water, sewage disposal, heating and air-conditioning equipment, and major additions, alterations, or repairs to the property. Information provided on housing expenses includes monthly mortgage or rent payments, cost of services such as utilities, garbage collection, and property insurance, and amount of real estate taxes paid in the previous year. Also included is information on whether the household received government assistance to help pay heating or cooling costs or for other energy-related services. Similar data are provided for housing units previously occupied by respondents who had recently moved. Additionally, indicators of housing and neighborhood quality are supplied. Housing quality variables include privacy of bedrooms, condition of kitchen facilities, basement or roof leakage, breakdowns of plumbing facilities and equipment, and overall opinion of the structure. For quality of neighborhood, variables include use of exterminator services, existence of boarded-up buildings, and overall quality of the neighborhood. In addition to housing characteristics, some demographic data are provided on household members, such as age, sex, race, marital status, income, and relationship to householder. Additional data provided on the householder include years of school completed, Spanish origin, length of residence, and length of occupancy.
description: Please review the Weighting Information located in the ICPSR codebook for this American Housing Survey study, as well as Appendix B in CURRENT HOUSING REPORTS, 1997, included with this collection.
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: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Work Done Record (Replacement or Additions to the House) 
 DS2: Housing Unit Record (Main Record) 
 DS3: Worker Record 
 DS4: Mortgages (Owners Only) 
 DS5: Manager and Owner Record (Renters Only) 
 DS6: Person Record 
 DS7: Mover Group Record 
 DS8: Recodes (One Record per Housing Unit) 
 DS9: Weights
description: American Housing Survey Series
description: (1) Beginning in 1997, the methods of collecting and processing American Housing Survey (AHS) data were redesigned. All interviews are conducted using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) software, allowing new responses to some questions. Rather than existing as a single file, this collection consists of nine parts, each containing data pertaining to a specific subject-matter. In addition, data for building and neighborhood questions ceased to be collected through interviewer observation. Rather, these questions have been reworded for the respondents. Due to these changes, users are asked to use caution when comparing data prior to 1997 with data from 1997 forward. For further information about the redesign, please refer to DOCUMENTATION OF CHANGES IN THE 1997 AMERICAN HOUSING SURVEY included with this collection. (2) Additional information about the American Housing Survey can be found at the HUD USER Web site and the U.S. Census Bureau Web site
description: Housing units in the United States.
description: The 1997 national data are from a sample of housing units interviewed between August and November 1997. The same basic sample of housing units is interviewed every two years until a new sample is selected. The sample was updated by adding newly constructed housing units and units discovered through coverage improvement efforts every enumeration. For the 1997 American Housing Survey-National sample (AHS-N), approximately 53,100 sample housing units were selected for interview. About 2,200 of these units were found to be ineligible because the unit no longer existed or because the unit did not meet the definition of a housing unit. Of the 50,900 eligible sample units (both occupied and vacant housing units), about 5,000 were classified 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. This produced a 90-percent overall response rate. The American Housing Survey sample consists of the following types of units in the sampled primary sampling units: Housing units selected from the 1980 census, New construction in areas requiring building permits, Housing units missed in the 1980 census, and Other housing units added since the 1980 census. For more information about Sample Design, please see Appendix B in CURRENT HOUSING REPORTS, 1997, included with this collection.