ACS 2007 Standard Quality Rent Calculation for
Banks County, GA

The following information provides details on how the 2007 ACS Standard Quality 50th Percentile Rent of $750 was developed for Banks County, GA using the publically releasable distributions from the 2007 ACS.

The distributions behind the update factor calculations for Banks County, GA use the ACS data compiled for Georgia. The following distribution demonstrations will be the same for all areas using Georgia ACS data.

User Note

The standard quality rents that HUD uses in generating FMRs are derived from rent distributions that are prohibited from public release under Title XIII to protect the confidentiality of respondents. The distributions used in this demonstration are rounded versions of the actual, protected data.

The rounding scheme is as follows:

0, count = 0
1 to 7, count = 4
all other counts are rounded to the nearest 5 (e.g., 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.)

CALCULATIONS USING THE ROUNDED DATA MAY NOT PRODUCE THE SAME RESULT AS CALCULATIONS USING THE PROTECTED DATA. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUD'S ACTUAL RESULTS AND THOSE DEMONSTRATED HERE IS INVERSELY RELATED TO THE SIZE OF THE AREA. THAT IS, THE LARGER THE AREA, THE CLOSER THE CALCULATION BASED ON THE ROUNDED DATA IS LIKELY TO BE TO THE CENSUS BASE RENT COMPUTED FROM THE PROTECTED DATA.


Standard Quality Rents

HUD uses rents for standard quality units to generate update factors. "Standard Quality" units and rents are determined by limiting the full ACS sample by including only responses meeting the following criteria:

a. Occupied rental units paying cash rent
b. Specified renter ? on 10 acres or less
c. with full plumbing
d. with full kitchen
e. built before 1999
f. meals not included in rent

The 2007 ACS did not included a question that could be used to filter public or assisted housing from the rental distributions, however HUD is required to ensure that FMRs exclude non-market rental housing in their computation. Therefore, HUD excludes all units falling below a specified rent level determined from public housing rents in HUD's program databases as likely to be either assisted housing or otherwise at a below-market rent (perhaps due to quality problems not otherwise captured by the survey questions).

The "public housing" rent cut-off for Banks County, GA in 2007 is $246.

Note: For a discussion of the derivation of the cut-off rent, please review the following document: Public Housing Adjustments for FMRs

A Microsoft Excel file containing the unsummarized versions of the publicly releasable standard quality 2-bedroom rent distributions for Banks County, GA is available here.


50th Percentile 2007 ACS Standard Quality Rent - Banks County, GA

The following table and calculations demonstrate how the 50th percentile 2007 ACS standard quality rent is determined for Banks County, GA using the public distribution of standard quality rents.

Portion of Standard Quality Rent Distribution Gross Rent Dollar Range Number of Units Percent of Eligible Distribution Cumulative Percent
Units below interval containing
public housing rent level of $246
$0 to $224 11,495 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
Units in interval containing
public housing rent level of $246
$225 to $245 2,494.80 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
$246 to $249 475.20 0.1% 0.1%
Units below interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $750
$250 to $749 199,280 49.9% 50.0%
Units in interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $750
$750 to $774 17,665 4.4% 54.4%
Units above interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $750
$775 or more 182,300 45.6% 100.0%
Total Units Above Public Housing Rent in Standard Quality Rent Distribution   399,720.20    

The numbers of units with standard quality rents above and below the Public Housing Rent level of $246 for Banks County, GA is determined using linear interpolation over the 2,970 units in the rent range $225 to $249. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 2,970 units' rents are uniformly distributed in the rent range around the Public Housing Rent level. Under this assumption, the proportion of the rent interval ($25) that is below the Public Housing Rent level is the same as the proportion of units with rents in the interval (2,970) that have rents below the Public Housing Rent level.

Proportion of rent interval below the Public Housing Rent Level: ($246 - $225) / $25 = 0.8400

Units in the Public Housing Rent Level Interval below the Public Housing Rent Level: 0.8400 x 2,970 = 2,494.80

The 50th percentile standard quality rent for Banks County, GA is computed by linear interpolation over the 17,665 units in the rent range $750 to $774. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 17,665 units' rents are uniformly distributed in the rent range around the 50th percentile. Under this assumption, the proportion of the rent interval ($25) that needs to be added to the lower limit of the interval to reach the 50th percentile rent is the same as the proportion of units in the interval that needs to be added to the units in lower rent intervals to reach 50 percent of units in the distribution.

50 percent of units = .5 x 399,720.20 = 199,860.10

Units below the 50th percentile rent interval = 199,280.00 + 475.20 = 199,755.20

Units in 50th percentile rent interval needed to reach 50 percent of units = 199,860.10 - 199,755 = 104.90

Additional Units as Proportion of Interval = 104.90 / 17,665 = 0.0059

Dollars Added to Lower Limit of Interval to reach 50th percentile rent = 0.0059 x $25 = $0

50th percentile standard quality rent = $750 + $0 = $750



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