A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census

Version:  View help for Version V2

Name File Type Size Last Modified
1995-2000.zip application/zip 675.5 KB 03/03/2025 10:25:AM
2001-2006.zip application/zip 1.3 MB 03/03/2025 10:23:AM
2007-2011.zip application/zip 4 MB 03/03/2025 10:24:AM
2012-2018.zip application/zip 10.7 MB 03/03/2025 10:24:AM
ARCHIVISTS_NOTE.md text/x-web-markdown 1.3 KB 02/28/2025 08:48:AM
SOMA_Censue_webpage_screeenshot_20250311.png image/png 242.8 KB 03/11/2025 09:13:AM
SOMA_HUD_webpage_screenshot_20250311.png image/png 1.1 MB 03/11/2025 09:08:AM
absorption_table_scraper.ipynb text/plain 4 KB 03/03/2025 10:27:AM
documentation.zip application/zip 2 MB 03/03/2025 10:25:AM
webpages.zip application/zip 2.9 MB 03/03/2025 10:27:AM

Project Citation: 

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-03-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/E221441V2

Project Description

Project Title:  View help for Project Title Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units
Summary:  View help for Summary
The Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units (SOMA) is sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. SOMA collects data for new residential construction of multifamily units, including apartment buildings and condominium buildings. SOMA provide information on amenities, rent/sales price levels, number of units, type of building, and the number of units taken off the market (absorbed).

SOMA uses the Census Bureau's Survey of Construction (SOC) as its sampling base. Each month, a sample of residential buildings containing five or more units is selected for SOMA. The initial 3-month interview collects information on amenities, rent or sales price levels, number of units, type of building, and the number of units taken off the market (absorbed). Field representatives conduct subsequent interviews, if necessary, at 6, 9, and 12 months after completion.
Original Distribution URL:  View help for Original Distribution URL https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/soma.html

Scope of Project

Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1995 – 2018
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) census/enumeration data; other; text
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes
This is a collection of about 3000 files that were automatically scraped and organized into a folder structure aligning with their URL paths. The script used is available in the folders, below is a brief description of the tables.

The script used to scrape this data is provided in file 'absorption_table_scraper.ipynb', as well as all the webpages that these files are hosted on. There are 4 types of data from each year:

### Quarterly Absorption Tables

These files are stored in folders at `YYYY/YYYY-qtly-absorption/` and broken into 4 subdirectories for each quarter of that year, annotated with qtr#YY. The webpage for each year of the quarterly absorption tables are stored at `webpages/YYYY-qtly-absorptions.html`


### Annual Absorption Tables

These files are stored in folders at `YYYY/YYYY-annual-absorptions/`. The webpage for each year of the quarterly absorption tables are stored at `webpages/YYYY-annual-absorptions.html`. This annualized data does not exist for 2018, which only has the first two quarters


### Apartment Characteristics

These files are stored in folders at `YYYY/YYYY-apartment-characteristics/`. The webpage for each year of the quarterly absorption tables are stored at `webpages/YYYY-apartment-characteristics.html`.


### Quarterly Metropolitan Absorption Tables

These files are stored in folders at `YYYY/YYYY-qtly-metro-absorption/` and broken into 4 subdirectories for each quarter of that year, annotated with qtr#YY. The webpage for each year of the quarterly absorption tables are stored at `webpages/YYYY-qtly-metro-absorptions.html`

Methodology

Collection Mode(s):  View help for Collection Mode(s) web scraping

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V3 [2026-04-27]

V2 [2025-03-11]

V1 [2025-03-03]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

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