Published September 8, 2026
Research question
What can the American Housing Survey show about housing costs for households living in manufactured or mobile homes?
This brief focuses on housing costs and selected housing-unit characteristics. The unit of analysis is occupied housing units and their households. Those two statements set the boundary for every comparison that follows.
Finding
The AHS can support weighted estimates for the population and variables it covers. It cannot establish the correct charge, affordability, or financial condition of a particular household.
That finding is deliberately narrow. Public datasets are useful when the question matches the collection program. They become misleading when a national or regional estimate is treated as a property record, or when a screening value is written as though it were a verified condition.
Method
The review used this procedure: identify the manufactured/mobile-home category in the public-use documentation, select the cost variables defined for the same survey year, apply the supplied weights, and calculate uncertainty with the recommended variance method. We opened the publisher's program page, data page, and technical material on September 8, 2026. We recorded the publisher, page title, URL, unit, geography, reference period, update status, and any warning attached to the measure.
| Method field | What the reviewer records | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Universe | Population the program intends to cover | Defines who or what an estimate represents |
| Unit | Home, shipment, household, loan, place, or record | Prevents unlike counts from being combined |
| Period | Survey year, month, fiscal year, or release date | Keeps time comparisons consistent |
| Geography | National, region, state, county, tract, or place | Shows whether a local inference is supportable |
| Status | Preliminary, revised, final, suppressed, or unavailable | Preserves the publisher's qualification |
| Extraction | Table, filter, variable, weight, and calculation | Lets a second reviewer repeat the work |
We did not estimate a new national total, rank communities, or infer an individual outcome. No property files, resident records, lender files, or site observations were used. The result is a reading guide for the published sources, not a substitute for an analysis built around a specific business question.
How to reproduce the review
Start at the first source below and write down the dataset or program name exactly as the publisher gives it. Open the technical documentation before choosing a variable. If the publisher supplies a codebook, data dictionary, sample weight, standard error, or revision note, keep it with the extract.
Next, make a one-row source log for every value. Include the direct URL and access date. Save the filter selections in words; a screenshot alone may hide them. A second reviewer should be able to reach the same table and explain why the selected unit answers the research question.
For comparisons, put both definitions side by side. Stop if the universes, units, periods, or geographies differ. A comparison may still be useful, but it must be presented as two separate measures rather than a single rate or gap. Do not convert missing, suppressed, or not-applicable values to zero.