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Housing and Real Estate Data

Guide to housing and real estate data at Princeton University

Housing Prices - USA

In addition to some of the sources on the international real estate section, see:

Zillow has median home prices, rental prices, % homes sold for loss or gain, foreclosures, and other real estate values at the county and state level for 2000+.

The Case Shiller Index provides monthly pricing/resale values back to 1987 for the United States and 20 metropolitan areas. Data is available directly from Standard & Poor's. Registration is required.   Select data is available in Global Financial Data.

The Census and the American Community Survey both ask for median house value.  Easy to access through Social Explorer. Note the question asked is "About how much do you think this house and lot, apartment, or mobile home (and lot, if owned) would sell for if it were for sale?"

Also see the Corelogic MLS data.

Morris A. Davis, a professor of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business provides a U.S. residential land price index back to 1930 and the U.S. ratio of gross rents to prices as well as other real estate data. Metro and state level data is available at the Lincoln Land Institute.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator and conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the regulator of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, provides housing price indexes.

CEIC has REDFIN data including seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted data covering Census Region, State and Metropolitan Area estimates. Historical information is available from February 2012 and is updated every Thursday following the second Saturday of every month.  Included are median sales price, price per square, pending home sales, home sales, new homes listed for sale, inventories, months of supply, average days on market, average sales to list, homes sold above asking, listings with price drops, off market within 2 weeks, and actual listings.

Global Financial Data has partnered with Winans International to offer historical real estate data. Included are the Winans International U.S. Real Estate Index™, which tracks the price of new homes back to 1830. In addition to the WIREI, Winans International has developed numerous other real estate statistics going back to the 1960s including regional real estate price indices, national and regional average and median home prices, and national and regional new home sales and listings. Further information may be obtained using the Search Engine. Choose “Real Estate Market Data” under Data Series Type in the Filter Search.  Also includes Case-Schiller Index.

Data Axle Historical Residential includes detailed modeled data on predicted home values by address for 2006+. Available through WRDS.

National Association of Realtors provides data on sales, pricing, and affordability.

Altos Rental Intel data (Classic USA_National).  Weekly rental listings available in the market from January 2011 to April 2024.  Data is restricted to Princeton University faculty, staff, and students for academic research. Please contact data@princeton.edu for access.

Rentonomics.  Provides rent estimates by starting with fully representative median rent statistics for recent movers taken from the Census Bureau American Community Survey. Data is then extrapolated forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from their listing data. Growth rates are calculated using a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods in order to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has property tax rates by states and municipality.  Coverage varies with the oldest back to 1980.

Deeds, Mortgages, Taxes, and Multiple Listing Services Data

Mortgage Market Statistical Annual
(DR) HG4655.M64 (2007-2011, 2016-2021; 2023+) Also see Mortgage & Asset Securities Issuance (1990-March 2011)

For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by major city back to 2009 see FHLBank Public Use Database Previous Years | FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

 Corelogic.  Princeton has nationwide tax, deed, mortgage, and multiple listing service data for the United States.  Data is restricted.  Tax data is typically available back to 2005. Loan Level Market Analytics (LLMA) dataset includes origination and performance data on roughly 65% of active residential mortgages.  This data is provided through a consortium of mortgage servicers that CoreLogic has built through the years and the data goes back to the 1990’s. Dates of deeds vary greatly by county but becomes robust in the mid 2000s.  Latest tax and deeds data is from June 2024. LLMA data is through March 2023. CoreLogic MLS (Multiple Listing Service) Data contains listings from 148 real estate boards utilizing CoreLogic’s multiple listing service software. Dates of coverage vary greatly but in general earliest data is 2007. This dataset was acquired in August 2023.  Contact Bobray Bordelon for information.

Also see the HMDA and HUD data.

For parcel boundaries, see GIS.

 

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Data

HUD provides many data sets on a variety of topics, most notably affordable housing.  Start with the Data Set Reference Guide. Some of the more heavily used ones are:

Out of Reach provides wage required to afford modest housing in communities throughout the USA along with rental values.