National Low Income Housing Coalition
(4/1/2013 1:03 PM, National Low Income Housing Coalition)

Earlier this month, HUD and the Census Bureau released the 2012 Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS), a new tool which provides critical information on the country's multifamily rental housing stock. According to HUD, approximately one in five households live in the 2.3 million multifamily rental buildings nationwide, but before the release of this survey, very little was known about how these properties are financed.

The RHFS collects data on property values, property characteristics, management status, ownership status, mortgage financing, and rental status. This new data source provides insight into the financial well-being of the country's rental housing stock, and includes information on the benefits properties receive from federal, state, local, and non-governmental programs.

Preliminary analysis of the 2012 RHFS indicates that approximately 67% of multifamily rental housing properties are owned by individuals or households rather than by larger entities. Fifty-four percent of two- to four-unit properties have mortgages and 85% of rental properties with 50 or more units have mortgages. Only 8% of total properties receive benefits, including grants, below market loans, and tax credits, from federal, state, local, or non-governmental programs.

The mean rent for units surveyed is $744 and 92% of the properties do not have rent control. Further, only 2% of properties have project-based voucher units and 4% have units with a Section 8 Housing Assistance Program (HAP) contract. Fifteen percent of all properties have tenants that receive Section 8 vouchers, but over half (51%) of these have only one tenant receiving vouchers and 25% have between 2 and 4 tenants receiving vouchers.

In a press statement announcing the release of the survey, HUD and the Census Bureau said that they expect the RHFS "to play an important role in enabling the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to fulfill its requirements to set affordable housing goals for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and to develop standards for underwriting multifamily mortgages." They also anticipate that multifamily rental housing industry will use the data to benchmark individual property financial performance.

The RHFS will be conducted every two years to explore national trends in rental housing characteristics and financing. The Census Bureau conducted the first survey in early 2012, interviewing respondents in a nationally representative sample of 2,264 rental properties that participated in the American Housing Survey (AHS).