American Housing Survey (AHS)

Microdata are files containing individual responses to survey questions. They are used to create custom tabulations, allowing users to delve further into the rich detail collected in the American Housing Survey. In the AHS microdata, the basic unit is an individual housing unit. Each record shows most of the information associated with a specific housing unit or individual, except for data items that could be used to personally identify that housing unit or individual.

As required by federal law, the AHS protects the confidentiality of its respondents through a variety of steps designed to disguise or suppress original data while making sure the results are still useful. In addition to modifying individual records, respondent confidentiality is protected because only geographic areas with a population of at least 100,000 are identified in the AHS microdata.

Download Microdata

• Microdata for each survey from 1995 to the current year may be downloaded from HUD USER  . Both SAS and ASCII versions are available. Microdata prior to 1995 may be ordered on CD-ROM from HUD USER.
• DataFerret enables you to extract data from 1993 through 2004 and create your own tables and cross tabulations.

Additional Documentation

For additional documentation, see HUD USER   and click on the survey year of interest for items such as:

• The Instrument Items Booklet [PDF]   – a PDF document that lists all the questions and responses in the AHS survey instrument. It was prepared for the Office of Management and Budget as part of the survey clearance process. This is the closest equivalent to a paper version of the AHS questionnaire.
• The Codebook for the American Housing Survey [PDF]   – contains several resources to help users locate information on specific variables and learn more about each subject covered in the survey.