VT Census Case Studies : Fannie Mae, National Housing Survey (NHS)

Brief Overall Description of the Dataset:

“The Fannie Mae National Housing Survey is a monthly attitudinal survey, which polls the adult general population of the United States to assess their attitudes toward owning and renting a home, purchase and rental prices, homeownership distress, household finances, and overall confidence in the economy. Each respondent is asked more than 100 questions, making the Fannie Mae National Housing Survey the most detailed attitudinal survey of its kind. The survey is conducted on a monthly basis to track attitudinal shifts that occur among homeowners and renters in the United States.”

 The survey is weighted to the ACS “to account for known biases resulting from non-response. 

To see full technical notes, see: http://www.fanniemae.com/resources/file/research/housingsurvey/pdf/nhstechnicalnotes.pdf

Screening

  • Is the data collected opinion-based?
  • Is the data collection recurring (must be collected at least annually)?
  • Is there data available for 2013?
  • Is the data collected at the property or housing unit level?
  • Can we access the data by August 15th?

Purpose

  • What is the purpose of the organization collecting the data?

“As the leading source of residential mortgage credit in the U.S. secondary market, Fannie Mae supports economic recovery and helping to build a sustainable housing finance system. They exist to provide reliable, large-scale access to affordable mortgage credit in all communities across the country at all times so people can buy, refinance, or rent homes.”

  • Why is it collected and how does the organization use it?

Used to assess their attitudes toward owning and renting a home, purchase and rental prices, homeownership distress, household finances, and overall confidence in the economy.

  • Who else uses the data?

Researchers, policy makers, businesses, investors

Research can be found here: http://www.fanniemae.com/portal/research-and-analysis/consumer-research-analysis.html

  • Who do they sell the data to?

Freely available


Method

  • What is the data collection method? 

Survey. To ensure that a representative audience is polled, Random Digit Dialing (RDD) is used with appropriate percentage of cell dialing.

See full questionnaire here: http://www.fanniemae.com/resources/file/research/housingsurvey/pdf/nhsquestionnaire.pdf

  • What is the type of data collected? 

Designed

  • If designed, who created the questions?

Fannie Mae researchers

  • What is the raw source of the collected data (prior to any aggregation)? 

Self reported survey answers


Description

  • What is the general topic of the data (1-2 words)?

Attitudes on home ownership, renting, finances, and economy

  • What are the earliest and latest dates for which data is available?

1996-2015

  • Is data collected and available periodically?

On a monthly basis, 12 indicators of Americans’ attitudes from the monthly survey are released publicly. 

  • How soon after a reference period ends can a data source be prepared and provided? 

The Fannie Mae National Housing Survey Monthly Report will be released on or around the 7th day of every month.  

A topic analysis, providing deeper insights into one or more issues based on the compilation of three monthly samples, is released on a quarterly basis. The three monthly studies that make up any given topic analysis are identical in wording and placement of questions.


Selectivity

  • What is the universe (e.g., population) that the data represents?

US adult general population (For the sample to accurately represent the U.S. population 60% of calls are made to cell phones. The margin of error for the total sample is ±3.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level and larger for sub-groups. Most of the data collection occurs during the first two weeks of each month.)


Accessibility

  • How is the data accessed? 

CSV and reports downloaded

  • Is it open data?

Yes

  • Any legal, regulatory, or administrative restrictions on accessing the data source?

None listed

  • Cost? - One time or annual or project based payment?

Free

Does this dataset appear to meet our needs for the Census study?  NO

Explanation:  Data is a mix of opinion based (attitudes) that do not directly relate to ACS specific questions and homeowner’s mortgage background. Data is only available in aggregated form for the US (sampling method does not permit lower levels of aggregation).