Rental Housing Finance Survey Plan

The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). We will be conducting cognitive research on the Rental Housing Finance Survey, a new survey sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This survey is a replacement for the Residential Finance Survey, which was conducted in years following the decennial census from 1960 to 2000, but which has been discontinued for 2011.

From November 2010 through January 2011, a contractor will conduct approximately 30 cognitive interviews in the Chicago, IL metropolitan area. Respondents to this survey are property owners or managers of residential rental properties. In our recruiting efforts we will be targeting owners/managers of properties with 2-4 units, 5-49 units, and 50+ units. Respondents will be recruited from lists of rental properties provided by the Census Bureau’s Chicago Regional Office, postings on Craigslist.com, and contacts made by subject matter experts at Census Bureau headquarters. Interviews will be conducted at the residential property location.

Many of the questions on this survey have been taken from the Residential Finance Survey conducted in 2001 and the Property Owners and Managers Survey conducted in 1995. The contractor will be focusing on questions about the type of property (Q. 3), how the property is financed (Qs. 19-36a) and new questions (Qs. 7, 17, 21, 26, and 27). Copies of the draft questionnaire, the draft protocol, and the consent form used by the contractor are enclosed.

We will conduct our cognitive interviews using the concurrent think-aloud method. We will audio-tape the interviews to facilitate analysis of the results. We will inform participants that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by employees involved in the research project. Participants will receive $40 for their participation in this research. This is the sponsor’s request due to the extreme time constraints on the project and the timing of the research.

We estimate that these interviews will take approximately one hour. Thus, the total estimated burden for this research is 30 hours.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:

Terry DeMaio

Center for Survey Measurement

U.S. Census Bureau

Room 5K319

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-4894

theresa.j.demaio@census.gov

Thomas Blatt

Demographic Surveys Division

U.S. Census Bureau

Room 7H137

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-3873

thomas.l.blatt@census.gov