  Traditional US rental housing data sources such as the American Community
Survey and the American Housing Survey report on the transacted market - what
existing renters pay each month. They do not explicitly tell us about the spot
market - i.e., the asking rents that current homeseekers must pay to acquire
housing - though they are routinely used as a proxy. This study compares
governmental data to millions of contemporaneous rental listings and finds that
asking rents diverge substantially from these most recent estimates.
Conventional housing data understate current market conditions and
affordability challenges, especially in cities with tight and expensive rental
markets.
