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Questions on this page are intended to address issues on methodology that are specific to the rent and owners’ equivalent rent (OER) indexes.
The rent and rental equivalence factsheet covers item definition, data sources, relative importance, sample selection, price change and quality adjustment, and imputation for rent and OER.
General CPI information is available on the questions and answers page.
Housing Unit: a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live and eat separately from any other persons in the building and which have direct access from the outside of the building or through a common hall.'
Panel: a partition of the Housing Survey sample of housing units into a mutually exclusive group for the purpose of data collection. There are six panels, with data collection occurring twice a year for the sample in each panel according to the schedule presented in table 1 below.
Panel | Months priced |
---|---|
1 |
January and July |
2 |
February and August |
3 |
March and September |
4 |
April and October |
5 |
May and November |
6 |
June and December |
Segment, Block Group, and Neighborhood: A segment is a partition of the total land area defining a sampled core-based-statistical-area (CBSA). A segment is almost always equivalent to a Census Block Group (CBG), but in some cases it could be a subset of a CBG or a grouping of multiple CBGs. Segments are used in the housing unit sample selection process. Colloquially, segments are referred to as neighborhoods.
Single Family Detached (SFD), non-Single Family Detached (non-SFD): SFD is a free-standing home; more specifically a structure consisting of just one dwelling unit intended for occupancy of one household or family and that does not share walls with other housing units A non-SFD may be a single family attached housing unit, apartment, condominium, row house, etc. Note that although mobile homes and house boats are both eligible for the CPI rent survey, they are classified as non-SFD for calculation purposes.
“If someone were to rent your home today, how much do you think it would rent for monthly, unfurnished and without utilities?”
The expenditure weight in the CPI market basket for Rent is based on the following questions that the Consumer Expenditure Survey asks of consumers who rent their primary residence:“What was your total rental payment for (reference month) for this unit? Include any extra charges for garage or parking facilities, but do not include direct payments by local, state or federal agencies.”
From the responses to these questions, the CPI program derives estimates of total annual expenditure on Rent and OER for each of the index populations. The higher relative importance for OER reflects that the average implied rent for homeowners is larger than the average rent of renters, coupled with the fact there are more owners than renters. More information is available on the relative importance page.Last Modified Date: February 11, 2025