AHS meaning in Real Estate ?

The American Housing Survey (AHS) is a statistical survey funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It is the largest regular national housing sample survey in the United States and contains information on the number and characteristics of U.S. housing units as well as the households that occupy those units.

Beginning in 2007 both the national (AHS-N) and metropolitan (AHS-MS) surveys are conducted every odd-numbered year rather than the previous practice of sampling every odd-numbered year for AHS-N and even-numbered year for AHS-MS. The 2007 sample consisted of 55,000 national housing units and 7 metropolitan sampling areas (MSAs) with 3,000 units for a total sample size of 76,000 housing units. In 2001, there were 119,117,000 housing units in the United States, with 106,261,000 occupied and 12,855,000 vacant.

The metropolitan areas are revisited for an updated sample every six years. Since 1985, the survey data in both the national and metropolitan area samples are collected from the same homes each survey year; hence the AHS can track changes in these housing units over time. With each new national or metropolitan survey, new housing units are added to the sample to account for new construction since the last survey.