New Address-Based Data Set Available to Housing Researchers and Practitioners

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Thanks to a partnership between HUD and the United States Postal Service (USPS), housing researchers and practitioners now have a new tool to monitor neighborhood changes at the census tract level. Data on all residential and commercial addresses in the United States are now available at no cost on the HUD USER website. The data also show addresses USPS classifies as vacant (addresses where mail has not been collected for 90 days or more) or “no-stat” (addresses under construction, being rehabilitated, or otherwise unlikely to be active for some time). Mail carriers are important sources for this kind of information, particularly in urban areas.

The data, which are updated quarterly, can be opened in a variety of database programs. Practitioners can track neighborhood changes or trends by the following factors:

• Total number of vacant addresses;

• Average number of days addresses were vacant;

• Length of vacancy (from 3 to 36 months or longer);

• Addresses vacant during the previous quarter but now occupied, as well as those vacant in the previous quarter and now classified as no-stat; and

• Total number of no-stat addresses in a particular census tract.

U.S. Postal Service data on all residential and commercial addresses in the country are now available from HUD USER.

Data are also available from USPS on the number of days an address has been listed in each category. Because USPS began tracking the number of days of tenure per category in November 2005, addresses that have been on the vacant list for more than three years will not appear until December 2008.

Aggregating Data at the Census Tract Level

In accordance with our licensing agreement with USPS, HUD’s Geocode Service Center (GSC) receives the quarterly data at the ZIP+4 level and aggregates it at the census tract level before distributing the data to the public. ZIP+4 records that do not geocode to the regular 5-digit ZIP code level are excluded from the aggregation process. However, GSC will include nongeocoded ZIP+4 records from the previous quarter when geocoding the current quarter’s ZIP+4 records. Frequent updates of GSC data result in a variance in the number of records in the census tract files from quarter to quarter, which users should take into account when tracking changes over time.

Potential Data Uses

HUD is making these data available to researchers and practitioners as a means of determining their usefulness for tracking change in neighborhoods or census tracts over time. Some applications have already been identified. For example, a reduction in total addresses from one quarter to the next in an economically distressed area could indicate that demolition is taking place. Comparing the total number of addresses between quarters could also help distinguish areas in decline from those with high growth rates. An increase in addresses with a corresponding increase in no-stat addresses usually indicates new construction within that area. Vacation and resort areas will have high vacant address rates despite their high short-term occupancy rates.

Access this versatile research tool at www.huduser.org/datasets/usps.html, where you can also download quarterly files from March 31, 2006 to March 31, 2007. The data is available at no cost; users simply agree to the terms and conditions of a sublicense found on the HUD USER website before downloading the data. HUD is interested in what researchers learn from the information and how they are using it. Please contact Robert_N._Renner@hud.gov with any comments or questions, and put USPS Data in the subject line.