ACS 2008 Standard Quality Rent Calculation for
Curry County, OR

The following information provides details on how the 2008 ACS Standard Quality 50th Percentile Rent of $777 was developed for Curry County, OR using the publically releasable distributions from the 2008 ACS.

The distributions behind the update factor calculations for Curry County, OR use the ACS data compiled for Oregon. The following distribution demonstrations will be the same for all areas using Oregon 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 Curry County, OR in 2008 is $332.

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 Curry County, OR is available here.


50th Percentile 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent - Curry County, OR

The following table and calculations demonstrate how the 50th percentile 2008 ACS standard quality rent is determined for Curry County, OR 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 $332
$0 to $324 5,440 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
Units in interval containing
public housing rent level of $332
$325 to $331 197.40 Not in Distribution Not in Distribution
$332 to $349 507.60 0.3% 0.3%
Units below interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $776
$350 to $774 100,375 49.4% 49.7%
Units in interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $776
$775 to $799 11,395 5.6% 55.3%
Units above interval containing
50th percentile standard quality rent of $776
$800 or more 90,760 44.7% 100.0%
Total Units Above Public Housing Rent in Standard Quality Rent Distribution   203,037.60    

The numbers of units with standard quality rents above and below the Public Housing Rent level of $332 for Curry County, OR is determined using linear interpolation over the 705 units in the rent range $325 to $349. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 705 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 (705) that have rents below the Public Housing Rent level.

Proportion of rent interval below the Public Housing Rent Level: ($332 - $325) / $25 = 0.2800

Units in the Public Housing Rent Level Interval below the Public Housing Rent Level: 0.2800 x 705 = 197.40

The 50th percentile standard quality rent for Curry County, OR is computed by linear interpolation over the 11,395 units in the rent range $775 to $799. Linear interpolation uses the assupmtion that the 11,395 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 203,037.60 = 101,518.80

Units below the 50th percentile rent interval = 100,375.00 + 507.60 = 100,882.60

Units in 50th percentile rent interval needed to reach 50 percent of units = 101,518.80 - 100,883 = 636.20

Additional Units as Proportion of Interval = 636.20 / 11,395 = 0.0558

Dollars Added to Lower Limit of Interval to reach 50th percentile rent = 0.0558 x $25 = $1

50th percentile standard quality rent = $775 + $1 = $776

The difference between the actual 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent of $777 and the demonstration 2008 ACS Standard Quality Rent of $776 computed here is due to the effects of rounding on the public distribution as described above.



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