American Housing Brief

This brief presents findings from an analysis of data from the 1997 American Housing Survey, a study of 53,000 housing units across the United States. Within this total, there were considerable differences in size, construction, and features.

About 55 percent of single-family, detached units have two or more floors. Among attached units, the proportion rises to 65 percent, with units in multiunit buildings coming in at 87 percent. Whether attached or detached, single-family homes are seldom taller than three stories (about 5 percent of attached and 3 percent of detached are higher). Even among multiunit structures, 80 percent of units are in buildings with three or fewer floors. Approximately 5 percent of apartments are in buildings with ten or more floors. About half of these units are in buildings located in the Northeast.

Using the stairs may be hazardous. One in ten households living in multiunit buildings reported that the hand railings on the stairs were not firmly attached. Among the households in multiunit buildings, 16 percent said that the building’s stairways had some loose, broken, or missing steps.

Elevators are an option for some households. Not surprisingly, taller residential buildings usually have elevators. Eighty-three percent of units in multiunit buildings with seven or more floors have a working elevator available on their floor. This percentage drops to 42 percent for those with four to six floors and 10 percent for apartments in buildings with three or fewer stories.

Very few occupied housing units, less than 1 percent nationwide, had no heating equipment. The majority (nearly nine in ten) had a central heating system. The two leading causes for not having sufficient heat were utility interruptions (such as power blackouts due to storm damage or accidents) and equipment breakdowns. Only about one in four households reported their homes had more than one type of heating equipment. About 30 percent of homes with more than one source of heat had portable electric heaters as backups.

The top three main house heating fuels were piped gas, electricity, and fuel oil. Together, these three fuels provided heating for over nine in ten households (91 percent). Considered over the entire year, the median monthly charges for these fuels were $42 for gas, $63 for electricity, and $63 for fuel oil.

Because 71 percent of homeowners and 35 percent of renters have more than one vehicle, parking space can be a real concern. Garages or carports are common for households living in single-detached units—just over three in four of these homes (76 percent) have a covered shelter for vehicles. Townhouses or row houses, on the other hand, include a garage or carport less than half the time (46 percent). In both mobile homes and units in multiunit buildings, the proportion is 26 percent.

At homes without a garage or carport available, vehicles may be left either on the street or in a driveway, parking lot or other off-street space. For homes without a garage or carport, some kind of off-street space is available at 87 percent of the detached units, at about 75 percent of both the single-attached units and units in multiunit structures, and at 90 percent of the mobile homes.

All this leaves about 7.8 million households who must rely on street parking. Of course, not all of those households have vehicles. Four in ten households who report no offstreet or garage parking also have no vehicles.

About one in three made their down payments chiefly from money obtained by the sale of a previous home; another 7 percent were not required to make a down payment. The remaining owners got money for the down payment from a variety of sources, such as investments, gifts or using the land as collateral.

Six in ten homeowners had a mortgage or home equity loan on their property in 1997. Eighty-seven percent of owners with a regular mortgage had a fixed-rate, fixed-term, self-amortizing loan for their primary mortgage. Adjustable-rate, adjustable-term, balloon payment, and other mortgage variations made up the remainder of the primary mortgages. Fewer than two in ten (19 percent) homeowners with a mortgage and/or a home equity loan had more than one loan on their home.

Nearly seven million households had homes with major problems, such as the lack of a complete kitchen, poor building or hallway maintenance, or the absence of or frequent breakdowns in the plumbing, heating or electrical systems. Forty-six percent of the homes with problems were single-family, detached houses rather than apartments in multiunit buildings or other types of structures.

Although renter households made up just 34 percent of all households, renters lived in about six in ten of the units with severe or moderate problems. Lower-cost rental units (those with a gross rent of under $250 per month) and units occupied without payment of cash rent were more likely than the higher cost units (those renting for $250 per month or more) to have significant problems. The proportions were 16 percent for both low-cost and no-cash-rent units and 11 percent for the more expensive rental units.

Figure 1

				Less than 25%	   25 to 34%	35 to 49%     50% or more

Owners				      70	      13	    7		   9


Renters				      41	      20	   15		  24


Northeast Region		      56	      17           10             17


Midwest Region		              67              15            8             11


South Region			      63              14            9             13	


West Region                           53              18           12             17

Note: numbers may not sum to 100 due to rounding
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
American Housing Survey: 1997

Figure 2

                                     Owners                               Renters
                       Percent       Percent    Percent      Percent      Percent      Percent
                       Of  total     cars       trucks       Of total      cars        trucks
Number of Vehicles
      None                 4            na         na            21          na            na
      One                 25            87         13            44          88            12
      Two                 45            70         30            26          77            23
      Three               18            65         35             7          60            40
      Four                 6            65         35             2          62            38
      Five or more1        2            na         na             1          na            na

Note: numbers may not sum to 100 due to rounding
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
American Housing Survey: 1997

¹ Data recorded on number of vehicles were limited to 5 or more cars and 5 or more trucks; therefore percentage of each type of vehicle for households with 5 or more vehicles cannot be determined.

Table 1

                                 Owner                  Renter

1 Bedroom                        $325                    $475

2 Bedrooms                       $365                    $565

3 Bedrooms                       $540                    $647

4 or more Bedrooms               $815                    $698

Source: U.S. Census Bureau
American Housing Survey: 1997

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Page Last Modified: February 18, 2005