Respondents were asked to report rent only for the housing unit enumerated and to exclude any rent paid for additional units or for business premises. If a renter pays rent to the owner of a condominium or cooperative, and the condominium fee or cooperative carrying charge is also paid by the renter to the owner, the respondent was instructed to include the fee or carrying charge. If a renter receives payments from lodgers or roomers who are listed as members of the household, the respondent was instructed to report the rent without deduction for any payments received from the lodgers or roomers. The respondent was instructed to report the rent agreed to or contracted for even if paid by someone else such as friends or relatives living elsewhere, or a church or welfare agency. The median divides the rent distribution into two equal parts.
Quartiles divide the rent distribution into four equal parts.
Median and quartile rent calculations are rounded to the nearest whole dollar. Mean contract rent is rounded to the nearest whole dollar. In the 1970 and 1980 censuses, contract rent for vacant units had high allocation rates, about 35 percent. Data on this item have been collected since 1930. For 1990, quartiles were added because the range of rents and values in the United States has increased in recent years.