National Association of Realtors produces and sponsors a number of research projects on various aspects of housing, including the widely distributed Housing Affordability Index, and other data on existing home sales.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Homepage

The BLS has an almost bewildering array of data categories on its homepage. A good place to sort things out is on the Programs & Surveys description page.

Some data on housing costs is available and can be found as part of the Consumer Price Indexes,
Producer Price Indexes,
Consumer Expenditure Survey

U.S. Census Bureau Homepage

The Census Bureau has quite a bit of data on housing. A listing of Census Bureau housing topics can be found at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing.html

American Housing Survey collects data on the Nation's housing, including apartments, single-family homes, mobile homes, vacant housing units, household characteristics, income, housing and neighborhood quality, housing costs, equipment and fuels, size of housing unit, and recent movers. National data are collected in odd numbered years, and data for each of 47 selected Metropolitan Areas are collected about every four years, with an average of 12 Metropolitan Areas included each year. The AHS returns to the same housing units year after year to gather data; therefore, this survey is ideal for analyzing the flow of households through housing.

Housing Vacancy Survey provides current information on the rental and homeowner vacancy rates, and characteristics of units available for occupancy. Rental and homeowner vacancy rates and homeownership rates are available for the U.S., regions, states, and for the 75 largest Metropolitan Areas. The state and Metropolitan Area data are available annually, while national and regional data are available quarterly.

Construction Statistics is the place to go to find data on the numbers of housing units authorized by permits, started, sold or completed, and measures of the dollar value of all construction put in place each month. There is also data on the dollar value of residential improvement and repair work each quarter.

HUD User, the policy development and research information service of the Department of Housing and Urban Development provides gateways to lots of housing related data. A guide to the datasets available is located at http://www.huduser.org/datasets/pdrdatas.html. The building permits data available through the State of the Cities Data Systems is very user friendly.

US Census 2000 The homepage for the latest Census. From here you can get to tables of all the census data available organized according to various geographic and racial/ethnic categories. The pdf pamphlet Introduction to Census 2000 Data Products is a good overview of what data is available.

American Factfinder A menu based system that creates tables derived from data found in the Census, American Community Survey, Economic Censuses, and Population Estimates Program. Great for most data.

American Community Survey A relatively new survey designed to provide the data communities need every year instead of once in ten years. It is an on-going survey that the Census Bureau plans will replace the long form in the 2010 Census. Full implementation of the survey is planned in every county of the United States, pending Congressional funding. The survey will provide estimates of demographic, housing, social, and economic characteristics every year for all states, as well as for all cities, counties, metropolitan areas, and population groups of 65,000 people or more. For smaller areas, it will take three to five years to accumulate sufficient sample to produce data for areas as small as census tracts.

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