About OpenHousing

OpenHousingis a free, open-source platform that tracks America's housing affordability crisis at every level — ZIP code, metro, and state. We believe housing data should be accessible to everyone: researchers, journalists, advocates, policymakers, and the public.

Our Mission

Housing is the single largest expense for most American families, yet the data needed to understand the crisis is scattered across dozens of federal agencies, paywalled databases, and academic journals. OpenHousing brings it all together in one place — free, interactive, and updated regularly.

What We Track

  • Affordability scores for every metro and state, combining rent, income, and home price data
  • Rent burden — how many households spend 30% or 50%+ of income on housing
  • Mortgage access — approval and denial rates by race, income, and geography using HMDA data
  • Housing supply — construction permits, vacancy rates, and the national shortage
  • Homelessness — Point-in-Time counts and Continuum of Care data
  • Evictions — filing rates and outcomes across jurisdictions
  • Essential worker affordability — can teachers, nurses, and firefighters afford to live where they work?

Our Data Sources

All data on OpenHousing comes from public, authoritative sources:

  • U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey (ACS)
  • HUD — CHAS Data, Fair Market Rents, PIT Counts
  • FFIEC — Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data
  • Zillow — Home Value Index (ZHVI), Observed Rent Index (ZORI)
  • Federal Reserve — FRED economic data
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics — employment and wage data
  • Princeton Eviction Lab — eviction filing data

A TheDataProject.ai Site

OpenHousing is part of TheDataProject.ai, a collection of free, open-source public data platforms. Our sister sites include OpenCrime, OpenMedicaid, OpenMedicare, OpenSpending, OpenLobby, and more — all built on the principle that public data should be publicly accessible.

Open Source

OpenHousing is open source. Our code, data pipelines, and methodology are all publicly available. We believe transparency in data analysis is as important as transparency in the data itself.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or partnership inquiries? Reach us at info@thedataproject.ai.