UMVRDC

Housing Needs Assessment

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New service offered by the UMVRDC!

A Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) is a data-driven report to give your community a clear picture of the housing needs and gaps, both current and future, to help decide how best to invest in housing. The Housing Needs Assessment relies heavily on a community survey and interviews with key stakeholders in your community for high quality data.

Housing Needs Assessment PDF

You will learn more about who is in your city and what they want!
Who are the residents?

  • What is the current housing stock?
  • What type of housing is needed?
  • What type of housing is missing?
  • What should be prioritized?

What is in a Housing Needs Assessment?
The end product is a document that includes: Housing Demand; Housing Inventory; Affordability; Housing Funding Resources; Community Priorities

What does the process look like?
The 3-to-6-month process includes:

  1. Conduct a survey of the community.
  2. Conduct surveys/interviews of realtors, homebuilders, major employers and all rental owners.
  3. Complete a windshield survey to determine the condition of homes. (mapping of this data is an extra cost).
  4. Collect census data.
  5. Meet with a committee two times to help with public engagement and to create housing goals after data is compiled.
  6. Review all data and complete document with community goals.

Research completed
The community survey is the main source of data collection. It will tell us who is in your community and what type of house they can afford, is desired and is currently available.

The survey will help us create categories of types of homeowners such as: Entry Level homeowners; First-time homeowners; Move up Homebuyers; Empty nesters and never nesters; Younger Independent seniors; Older Seniors

The rental property owner survey will tell us how many rental properties are available, monthly rent data and demand.

The realtor interviews/survey will tell us how many properties are for sale, cost (recent purchase prices/listing prices), condition, demand and trends.

The home builders interviews/survey will tell us cost and demand for new housing.

The employer interviews/survey will tell us about issues around housing, prices points needed and local demand.

Other research will include US Census/American Community Survey (ACS), County Assessor data and a windshield survey.

The research will be delivered to the committee, and we will work with them to prioritize actions the city could take to improve housing options.

Draft Table of Contents

  • Introduction (purpose, methodology, context and community snapshot)
  • Market Inventory (for-sale, rental and 55+)
  • Housing Needs and Demand (affordability, demand by age categories, demand by sectors)
  • Conclusions (summaries, goals and strategies)
  • Housing Funding Resources
  • Appendix (full survey results, demographic profile and housing profile)

UMVRDC Project Cost*:
Cities with the following populations:

  • $10,000 (pop. 0-500)
  • $11,000 (pop. 501-1000)
  • $14,000 (pop. 1001 -3000)
  • $15,500 (pop. 3000+)

Does not include direct expenses or incentives to get people to fill out the community survey.

*Funding Assistance may be available