ACS 2008 Standard Quality Rent Calculation for
Taylor County, FL

The following information provides details on how the 2008 ACS Standard Quality 50th Percentile Rent of $950 was developed for Taylor County, FL using the publically releasable distributions from the 2008 ACS.

The distributions behind the update factor calculations for Taylor County, FL use the ACS data compiled for Florida. The following distribution demonstrations will be the same for all areas using Florida 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 2008 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 Taylor County, FL in 2008 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 Taylor County, FL is available here.


50th Percentile 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent - Taylor County, FL

The following table and calculations demonstrate how the 50th percentile 2008 ACS standard quality rent is determined for Taylor County, FL 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 8,965 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
Units in interval containing
public housing rent level of $246
$225 to $245 1,877.40 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
$246 to $249 357.60 0.0% 0.0%
Units below interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $949
$250 to $924 365,095 46.2% 46.3%
Units in interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $949
$925 to $949 30,060 3.8% 50.1%
Units above interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $949
$950 or more 394,590 49.9% 100.0%
Total Units Above Public Housing Rent in Standard Quality Rent Distribution   790,102.60    

The numbers of units with standard quality rents above and below the Public Housing Rent level of $246 for Taylor County, FL is determined using linear interpolation over the 2,235 units in the rent range $225 to $249. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 2,235 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 (2,235) 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 2,235 = 1,877.40

The 50th percentile standard quality rent for Taylor County, FL is computed by linear interpolation over the 30,060 units in the rent range $925 to $949. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 30,060 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 790,102.60 = 395,051.30

Units below the 50th percentile rent interval = 365,095.00 + 357.60 = 365,452.60

Units in 50th percentile rent interval needed to reach 50 percent of units = 395,051.30 - 365,453 = 29,598.70

Additional Units as Proportion of Interval = 29,598.70 / 30,060 = 0.9847

Dollars Added to Lower Limit of Interval to reach 50th percentile rent = 0.9847 x $25 = $25

50th percentile standard quality rent = $925 + $25 = $950

The difference between $950 in the demonstration and the value of $949 shown in the table is due to rounding.

The difference between the actual 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent of $950 and the demonstration 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent of $949 computed here is due to the effects of rounding on the public distribution as described above.



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