Rent data built for governmental housing decisions
Agencies and planning commissions are expected to make policy decisions on behalf of their constituents. Get clean, historical rental data scoped to your jurisdiction so those decisions are grounded in what is actually happening in the market.
One-time or ongoing purchase • Research-ready • Easy to use
Trusted by Leading Brands
What ACS can’t tell your agency
The Census is still a survey
The American Community Survey is the default source for most agencies, but it’s still a survey. It’s published on a lag of months and reports at the unit-type level (studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, etc) not the individual unit. Depending on your jurisdiction, the availability can become more limited: smaller geographies get published far less often.
One dataset, many departments
Housing policy needs factual unit-level asking rent to model affordability; transportation planning needs to know where renters are concentrated, not what they pay; and land use and property tax valuation need defensible comps. Most vendors build for one of these and ignore the rest, leaving every other department to buy its own separate, worse source.
Built to clear both hurdles
Dwellsy IQ is sourced directly from property management systems, not surveyed, so it arrives at the individual unit level instead of rolled up into a studio, one-bedroom, or two-bedroom average. It’s continuously updated rather than published on a lag, and that holds true even in the small counties, rural markets, and low-population MSAs that the ACS covers least often and least reliably.
Built for public-sector housing work at every level of government
Federal, state, metro, and county scope
Federal housing agencies need national or multi-state coverage. State departments need state-level trend data. Metropolitan planning organizations need MSA-bounded data at the city level. County and regional commissions need it bounded even tighter. Dwellsy IQ scopes to whichever tier your agency operates at, and nothing wider than that.
Density and concentration, not just price
Some questions aren’t about cost at all. Where are the most rental units concentrated? Where is rental housing growing or shrinking fastest? Dwellsy IQ’s unit-level footprint shows concentration and density across a jurisdiction, independent of rent, the kind of view a transportation or land-use planner needs before a policy analyst ever gets involved.
Built for economists
Our raw data is a clean, structured file an in-house economist or policy analyst can work with directly.
Threshold-aware pricing
Data packages sized to your jurisdiction, structured to stay under standard procurement thresholds. No lengthy approval process required.
Never surveyed and built for many audiences
Dwellsy IQ is sourced directly from property management systems, not surveyed, so it arrives at the individual unit level instead of rolled up into a studio, one-bedroom, or two-bedroom average. It’s continuously updated rather than published on a lag, and that holds true even in the small counties, rural markets, and low-population MSAs that the ACS covers least often and least reliably.
One-time or ongoing, transparent pricing
Buy a jurisdiction-bounded dataset for a fixed time range through a discretionary line item or grant.
Sole-source justification
Documentation supporting a sole-source purchase, since direct-to-property-manager sourcing isn’t replicated by another vendor.
Standard registration
Compatible with existing vendor registration requirements, including SAM.gov/UEI.
Standard invoicing
Net 30 or net 60, structured against a purchase order rather than a recurring contract. If your procurement process needs something specific from us to move forward, tell us what your office requires and we’ll provide it.
How government uses Dwellsy IQ’s rent data
Housing policy and legislative research
State agencies and federal housing bodies need unit-level rent data that holds up under legislative scrutiny, not a unit-type level average, but numbers traceable back to the property management systems where they were actually set.
Transportation and Transit Planning
Transit agencies deciding where a new bus line should run need to know where renters are concentrated. Dwellsy IQ’s unit-level footprint supports that view without needing a full economic model to get there.
See how the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission used Dwellsy IQ data to map housing and transportation affordability →Regional Planning and Land Use
County, metro, and regional planning commissions use jurisdiction-bounded rent data at the ZIP-code through MSA level to inform zoning decisions and development plans without paying for coverage outside their footprint.
Property Tax Valuation
Municipal appraisal districts need rent comps that can support a defensible valuation if it’s ever challenged — direct-sourced data holds up better than a scrape, a self-reported survey, or a modeled estimate.
Grant Compliance and Reporting
Any agency working under a grant needs data that drops directly into a compliance report without additional processing — built for line items that get reviewed by someone outside the department.
Dwellsy is one of the most accurate and reliable data comps tools we've used. As an investor, having clean, factual, and real-time comps is a game-changer. It helps us more efficiently and effectively do our work, and we love the product.
See the data before you talk to anyone
Download our data dictionary and a sample dataset to see exactly what fields, coverage, and granularity you’d be working with.
Get rental data scoped to your jurisdiction
Tell us your jurisdiction and your planning question, and we’ll scope a data package sized to fit under your procurement threshold, with the paperwork your office needs to approve it.
FAQ
Can we purchase data bounded to just our state, county, or MSA?
Yes. Dwellsy IQ data can be scoped to a specific jurisdiction — state, county, city, or MSA — and to a specific time range.
Can we purchase directly, without talking to sales first?
Yes. The self-serve checkout lets you select your geography and time range directly and complete the purchase without a sales call. Data is delivered manually within 1 business day of purchase.
How do we pay?
Both card and invoice/PO are supported, depending on your organization’s process.
How is the dataset delivered after the self-serve purchase?
Delivery is manual rather than instant, within 1 business day of completing the purchase, since each dataset is scoped to the specific geography and time range selected at checkout.
How is this different from Census/ACS data we already have access to?
The ACS is survey-based, modeled, and published on a lagging, uneven schedule across states. Dwellsy IQ is sourced directly from property management systems at the unit level, never surveyed, and continuously updated, so you can see the underlying records behind a trend.
We don’t have a data science team, just an in-house economist. Can we still use this data?
Yes. Data is delivered as a clean, ready-to-use file that an economist or policy analyst can work with directly, without a data pipeline or engineering support behind it.
How far back does the historical data go?
January 2020 to present, covering the COVID-era rent shock and post-pandemic normalization — relevant context for most affordability, planning, and transportation demand research.
What format does the data come in?
Most government agencies take delivery as CSV, TSV, JSON, or Parquet, whichever fits your existing reporting or planning workflow. Bulk delivery and API access are also available if your agency has the infrastructure to use them, but neither is required.
Do you cover both single-family and multifamily rental housing?
Yes. Dwellsy IQ covers SFR and multifamily, giving policy researchers a full view of a jurisdiction’s rental housing stock.
Is any of this data private or personally identifiable?
No. The dataset is public, owner-disclosed listing data at the unit level. There is no PII and no private data involved.
Can data support grant compliance or program reporting requirements?
Yes. Dwellsy IQ’s clean, exportable datasets are structured to support the market data requirements of many grant reporting and compliance processes.
Who should we contact to scope a data package for our jurisdiction?
Talk to our team with your target geography and time range and we’ll scope a jurisdiction-bounded dataset that fits your procurement requirements.
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