Construction, Housing and Real Property, a Survey of Available Basic Statistical Data

“At the present time there are twenty-one Federal agencies actively interested in information on the construction industry and its related “branches. Nine of these agencies have direct administrative responsibilities in the field and collect statistics largely as a byproduct of their administrative activities. The other twelve agencies gather data directly for “broader informational purposes. This decentralized system of collecting information increases the difficulty of establishing a well-planned and integrated statistical program, designed to fill gaps in data, reduce duplication to a minimum, and resolve conflicts among findings. It is also partially responsible for certain other weaknesses, such as (a) limitation of analysis to a narrower scope than is desirable and consequent failure to perceive informational gaps that should be filled, (b) lack of uniformity in definitions, (c) unnecessary competition among agencies, and (d) inadequate consideration of the need for prompt release of data.“

This document dated 1941 shows a turn in the methodology to analyse and document the market of housing. With eleven topics on the “construction industry“, the “volume of construction“, “construction costs“, “building materials“, “employment and pay rolls“, “real estate and housing data“, “the real estate business“, “real property and housing inventories“, “rentals and values“, “occupancy and vacancy data“, “real estate transfers and finance” and “real estate operating costs“, this document cross those topics on a table with the data collected in all Federal agencies to illustrate the dominance of each agency on those 11 topics.