While our main purpose in building a national parcel database is to enhance our core demographics by tracking change at the address level, along the way we have discovered that we can add to our detail tables with many new data tables. In addition, some of the information available is extremely useful in our current efforts to substantially improve our Consumer Expenditure (CEX) and Household Wealth databases.
The data, which is produced in the 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) releases, is based on relatively small annual samples which perform well for many demographic characteristics, though we have long suspected that the data is not as robust for housing characteristics.
We will be providing several enhanced housing characteristics table at the census block level, including:
- Dwelling and property size (distribution and average)
- Improved year built tables
- # Bedrooms and # Bathrooms
- Dwelling size by # Bedrooms
- Presence/absence of basement, swimming pools, etc.
- # Stories in building
The maps below highlight some of the basic information, much of it available only for single family dwellings. The quality of the data – sometimes even the presence – is variable nationwide and is dependent upon the data collection and storage practices of individual counties.
In addition to dwelling characteristics, the tax information available provides a broad range of direct and inferred/modeled information. In some cases, these will enhance existing tables while allowing us to add a number of new tables:
- We have long suspected that the vacant dwellings by reason tables of the ACS are suspect, and the use of parcel level tax data will considerably improve the key “vacant, for seasonal or occasional use” variable. These dwellings may be used exclusively by the owners, or they may be used as vacation rentals. By combining information on the use of homestead exemptions, differences in the property and mailing address, and our recently developed national AirBnB and VRBO databases, we will be able to offer significant improvements to the ACS tables.
- We will be adding additional tables based on valuation, taxation, and ownership change, including:
- Property taxes paid (average and distribution)
- Year of last sale
- Value at last sale
- Corporate ownership
Remote ownership can be looked at from the perspective of how many dwellings in this block are owned by persons or corporations located elsewhere. But we can also look at the opposite question – how many households in this census block own property elsewhere?
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