Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Survey of Housing Starts, Sales, and Completions (SOC)

The Department of Commerce will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register on July 20, 2026 during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce.

Title: Survey of Housing Starts, Sales, and Completions (SOC).

OMB Control Number: 0607-0110.

Form Number(s): SOC-QI/SF.1; SOC-QI/MF.1.

Type of Request: Regular submission, Request for an Extension, without Change, of a Currently Approved Collection Change.

Number of Respondents: We sample 19,353 new buildings each year. This results in an estimated 177,702 interviews per year.

Average Hours per Response: 5 minutes.

Burden Hours: 14809.

Needs and Uses: The U.S. Census Bureau plans to request a revision and three-year extension of the current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance of the Survey of Housing Starts, Sales and Completions, also known as the Survey of Construction (SOC). The SOC is co-sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The SOC collects monthly data on new residential construction from a sample of owners or builders. The Census Bureau uses the Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) electronic questionnaires SOC-QI/SF.1 and SOC-QI/MF.1 to collect data on start and completion dates of construction, physical characteristics of the structure (floor area, number of bathrooms, type of heating system, etc.), and if applicable, date of sale, sales price, and type of financing. Data collected through the SOC provide widely used measures of construction activity, including the economic indicators Housing Starts, Housing Completions, and New Residential Sales. The current clearance for this survey is scheduled to expire on March 31, 2027.

Beginning in January 2027, the SOC will no longer be covering a sample of non-permit-issuing areas. Non-permit estimates have steadily decreased over time and now represent less than 1% of our single-family estimates, the cost and difficulty in collecting the data is no longer worth the benefit. Instead, SOC will note that the estimates for 2027 forward are based only on permit-issuing areas.

The Census Bureau uses the information collected in the SOC to publish estimates of the number of new residential housing units started, under construction, completed, and the number of new houses sold and for sale. The Census Bureau also publishes many financial and physical characteristics of new housing units. Government agencies use these statistics to evaluate economic policy, measure progress towards the national housing goal, make policy decisions, and formulate legislation. For example, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System uses data from this survey to evaluate the effect of interest rates on housing sales and construction. The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses the data in developing Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The private sector uses the information for estimating the demand for building materials and the many products used in new housing and to schedule production, distribution, and sales efforts. The financial community uses the data to estimate the demand for short-term (construction loans) and long-term (mortgages) borrowing.

Frequency: Monthly.

Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.

Legal Authority: Title 13, United States Code, Sections 8(b), 131 and 182; Title 12 U.S.C., Sections 1701z-1 and 1701z-2g.

This information collection request may be viewed at www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/​public/​do/​PRAMain. Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function and ( printed page 68487) entering either the title of the collection or the OMB Control Number 0607-0110.