Aggregate rent asked is calculated by adding all of the rents for vacant-for-rent housing units in an area. Aggregate rent asked is subject to rounding, which means that all cells in a matrix are rounded to the nearest hundred dollars. (For more information, see "Aggregate" under "Derived Measures.")

Question/Concept History

Since 1996, the American Community Survey questionnaires provided a space for the respondent to enter a dollar amount. The words "or mobile home"
were added to the question starting in 1999 to be more inclusive of the structure type. Since 2004, contract rent has been shown for all renter-occupied housing units. In previous years (1996-2003), it was shown only for specified renter-occupied housing units.

Comparability

Data on contract rent and rent asked in the 2019 ACS should not be compared to Census 2000 contract rent and rent asked data. For Census 2000, tables were not released for total renter-occupied units or total vacant-for-rent housing units. The universes in Census 2000 were "specified renter-occupied housing units" and "specified vacant-for-rent housing units" whereas the universes in the 2019 ACS were "renter- occupied housing units" and "vacant-for-rent and rented, not occupied housing units". Thus comparisons cannot be made between these two data sets.