I am currently making an analysis of the consumption vectors of different income groups. my problem is that i dont have appropriate data showing the imputed rents for those people that own their houses instead of renting and i thought i could maybe use ipums for this. the year i am interested in is 2002
The variable RENT contains only values for rental units, not owned homes. IPUMS-USA does not contain a variable for imputed rent; however, IPUMS-CPS does contain an imputed rent variable: HOUSRET. HOUSRET is available for the years 1992-2013, but using IPUMS-CPS instead of IPUMS-USA will reduce your sample size. The variable description for HOUSRET (linked earlier) details the process used to calculate imputed rent for homeowners. This, along with the link to additional discussion in the description, may be of use if you attempt your own calculation of imputed rent.
I hope this helps.