Hi. It seems that it is not possible to identify vacant dwelling units in the 1940 full-count data, using either the hierarchical or household records structure. I’m curious whether this is due to the structure of the original scans/records, something in the transcription process, or something else entirely?
IPUMS USA does not distribute microdata from the 1940 census of housing. The only housing variables available are those that were asked as part of the population schedule questionnaires (see the 1940 questionnaire template). In 1940, these included questions regarding ownership (OWNERSHP), home value (VALUEH), monthly rent (RENT), and farm status (FARM). Vacancy status was not collected as part of the population schedule during this period, but was included in a separate housing schedule to the census. In the 1960 census forward, data collection for the household schedule and population schedule were combined.
Geographically aggregated counts of vacant units, digitized from the published volumes of the 1940 Census of Housing, are available for download through our spatial data project website, IPUMS NHGIS. When using the data finder tool to search for tables of interest, you can filter by year (1940) and topics (Occupancy/Vacancy and Use) to find the tables that are most relevant. You may be particularly interested in tables NT50 Vacant Dwelling Units for Sale or Rent (by state & county) and NT29 Vacant Dwelling Units by Market Status (by census tract for select tracted cities).