Since 1950, the Census Bureau has made a special effort as part of the population and housing censuses to gather information about the ways Americans finance residential property. We collect this information via a follow-up survey, the Residential Finance Survey (RFS). The box on back explains how we conduct the RFS.
This Brief covers financing arrangements for both single-unit, owner-occupied properties and rental and vacant properties with five or more housing units. It compares data collected by the 1991 RFS with statistics the survey gathered a decade earlier.