Rental market · South Bay, FL · Incorporated city
South Bay, FL: average rent, home values, and rental yield
South Atlantic · Population 5,102
DatasetCity Market Score, model balanced4,812 of 5,233 tracked U.S. markets rankedgenerated 2026-10-06Latest source releases: Zillow ZHVI/ZORI 2026-08 · Census ACS 5-yr 2024 · Census PEP 2025 · Census BPS 2025 · BLS LAUS 2025 · Redfin 2026-05 · FBI CDE 2025How this is built
A66.7
#280 of 4,812 ranked markets
Overall Score 66.7 · stronger than 94% of ranked markets · top 6%
Confidence 82/100 · 3 of 13 factors imputed
On the ranked lists: one of 614 markets at 8%+ gross yield · one of 1,084 fastest-growing markets. List pages show the top 100.
Grade A: the biggest single drag is Stability, 55.3 of 100 at 30% of the score, which is 44% of the distance to a perfect 100. See the arithmetic
Why this market does or does not qualify
Overall City Market Score rank #280 of 4,812. The standardized Buy & Hold screen cannot produce a complete result for this city. Why rank and cash flow can disagree
Supported strengths
Cash Flow 77/100 and Growth 68/100.
Measured weakness
Stability is the weakest category at 55/100.
Missing screen inputs: investor-entry price estimate. Primary evidenced risk: for-sale supply is the weakest measured factor (38th national percentile).
Data caveat: no missing input is treated as a zero cost. Bring an actual property’s price, rent, taxes, condition, and insurance quote to the calculator.
Why this grade
Overall 66.7 is a weighted geometric mean of the three category scores. Because they are multiplied rather than averaged, their distances from a perfect 100 combine as an exact identity, and each category's share of that distance is the arithmetic below, not an estimate. Stability carries 44% of it, which is what makes it the binding constraint on this grade.
Cash Flow · 35% weight
77.2 / 100
22% of the shortfall
Growth · 35% weight
67.5 / 100
34% of the shortfall
Stability · 30% weight
55.3 / 100
44% of the shortfall
Inside Stability, the shortfall splits over the factors the model scored here, exactly, in proportion to their published weights. The largest component is violent crime (weight 10 of the category's 30, 46th national percentile, 40% of the category's own shortfall); next is property tax rate (weight 4 of the category's 30, 45th national percentile, 16% of the category's own shortfall).
What this is not. It is not a claim that a different value on any one factor would produce a different score or a different grade. Every factor is scored as a national percentile and the grade is a percentile cut against the other 4,812 ranked markets, so this market's position moves only relative to all of them, never on its own. No factor was dropped for this market. 3 of the 13 factors were imputed (rent growth, violent crime, property crime): the model had no city input of the kind it scores, so it used a reference median instead of a measurement (the same county, or the same state and population band; a national median for a yield cost input), and the factor table marks each one as a fallback.
How South Bay ranks nationally
Each row places South Bay among all 4,812 ranked U.S. markets: the marker is this city, the centre tick is the national median, and the bar runs from one to the other. Further right is better for an investor; inverted measures (crime, vacancy, price-to-income) are already flipped.
Overall Scorethe flagship rank
66.794th percentile
Cash Flowyield & affordability
7783rd percentile
Growthpopulation, jobs, income
6880th percentile
Stabilitycrime, vacancy, unemployment
5563rd percentile
Expense-adjusted yield5.9% net of costs
9595th percentile
Affordabilityprice-to-income 4.4×
47more affordable than 47%
Rental vacancy3.6% vacant
70tighter than 70%
Population growth0.2%/yr (capped)
4545th percentile
Job growth1.2%/yr (capped)
7575th percentile
What a deal looks like here
We can't build a representative buy-box for South Bay yet: no investor-entry price (Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI) could be identity-matched to this market. Rather than fabricate numbers, bring your own price and rent to the calculator.
Open the cash-flow calculator →Market Negotiation Leverage
Some buyer leverage (78th percentile among 6,196 cities with Redfin coverage)
Equal-weight composite of three Redfin signals’ national percentiles (days on market 58, months of supply 3.5, sale-to-list 87.7%), direction-adjusted so a higher percentile always means more room for a buyer to negotiate. This is a cross-sectional snapshot against every other tracked city today, not a seasonal or historical baseline for this specific city (no multi-year time series is committed for this data). Not a prediction of what any specific seller will accept. Source: Redfin Data Center. See how this is calculated.
Typical home value $227,160
Median rent $1,085/mo
Population 5,102
Region South Atlantic
Price & rent history
Home value $112,290 → $227,160 (2004-01–2026-08)
Asking rent: no Zillow ZORI series - Zillow does not cover this city (Census-only). Nothing plotted rather than estimated.
Source: Zillow ZHVI (home value), quarterly from 2004-01, monthly from 2016-09 to 2026-08. Change the range or hover to read any point. Gaps in the source series are left as gaps - never interpolated.
ZIP markets in South Bay
3 Census ZIP Codes (ZCTAs) officially overlap South Bay by land area · 3 data-eligible for subscores. Overlap is Census land-area share, not a population or address share. Each ZIP Code's overall Rental Investor ZIP Score, grade and canonical national rank are shown below (the two component signals, affordability and rental market, are separate percentiles). There is no city-scoped ZIP rank: city overlap isn't a ranking universe, so only the national rank is shown. These ZIP rankings sit in the ZIP universe only, never mixed with, and not directly comparable to, South Bay's city ranking. Vintage: the Key metric column below is Census ACS 2020–2024 (5-year), the same survey release as the figures used above for South Bay itself; a city and a ZIP Code are different geographies, so the same measure can still show a different number at each level.
3 of 3 overlapping ZIP Code areas, scoredgrade, overall Rental Investor ZIP Score and national rank for each, on a separate model from this page's city scoreShow table
| ZIP Code | Overallgrade · natl rank | Tier · overlap | Affordabilitysignal · natl rank | Rental marketsignal · natl rank | Key metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33493South Bay | B 56#5,418 nat | RankedPrimary | 67#3,706 of 20,132 · top 18% | 65#3,398 of 20,132 · top 17% | 9.5%Survey yield |
| 33430Belle Glade | B 60#3,516 nat | Ranked3.2% overlap | 62#5,134 of 20,132 · top 26% | 68#2,549 of 20,132 · top 13% | 6.4%Survey yield |
| 33440Montura | B 58#4,682 nat | Ranked0.2% overlap | 55#7,338 of 20,132 · top 36% | 46#11,383 of 20,132 · bottom 43% | 5.3%Survey yield |
The honest read
South Bay scores 67/100 overall (grade A): 77 for Cash Flow, 68 for Growth, and 55 for Stability, each a 0–100 score built from the factors in that category. The scenario above shows what a representative investor-entry purchase pencils out to at today's rates. Everything we can measure is in the table below, with its source.
Every factor, shown
The Overall score blends three category scores built from thirteen factors: Cash Flow (35%), Growth (35%), and Stability (30%). The tag on each percentile names the category a scored factor feeds; untagged rows are context, not scored. Each band chip restates that row's percentile in words. Every value carries its source and as-of date; a fallback source or imputed value is marked fallback. How the score works.
| Factor | Value | National percentile | Source · as-of | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expense-adjusted yield fallback | 5.9% | Top 10%95th percentile · Cash Flow | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Annual rent divided by price, net of a modeled vacancy, tax, capex, and management allowance: the core of the Cash Flow category and what the score is actually computed from. The unadjusted gross yield is shown elsewhere on this page. |
| Price to income | 4.4x | Below median47th percentile · Cash Flow | Zillow + ACS income · 2026-08-31 | Home price over local median income. Lower is cheaper relative to what people earn. Part of the Cash Flow category. |
| Population growth | 0.2%/yr | Below median45th percentile · Growth | Census PEP · Census PEP 2020→2025 (vintage 2025) + Census PEP 2015→2025 (vintages 2019+2025) | Census population trend for the place, capped at 4.5%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate): the heaviest factor in the Growth category. |
| Job growth | 1.2%/yr | Top quartile75th percentile · Growth | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2019→2025 (pre-COVID anchor; 2025 is an 11-month average) + BLS LAUS county annual 2015→2025 | County employment trend, capped at 4.0%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate). A Growth-category factor. |
| Income growth | 9.8%/yr | Top 10%95th percentile · Growth | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Local median-income trend. A Growth-category factor. |
| Rent growth fallback | 4.9%/yr | Top quartile81st percentile · Growth | Model cohort median (eligible county or state/population cohort); no city-specific observation. Published 2026-10-06 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year rent trend (the model's own weighting). A Growth-category factor. |
| Home-value growth | 5.1%/yr | Above median61st percentile · Growth | Zillow ZHVI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year price trend (the model's own weighting). A small Growth-category factor. |
| Violent crime fallback | 188 /100k/yr | Below median46th percentile · Stability | Model cohort median (eligible county or state/population cohort); no city-specific observation. Published 2026-10-06 | Reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents a year (the FBI's monthly agency rates, times 12). No agency reported this place to the FBI, so the score uses the model cohort median shown (same county, or same state and population band), not a city observation. City-level data cannot resolve within-neighborhood risk. |
| Property crime fallback | 1,040 /100k/yr | Above median68th percentile · Stability | Model cohort median (eligible county or state/population cohort); no city-specific observation. Published 2026-10-06 | Reported property crimes per 100,000 residents a year. No agency reported this place to the FBI, so the score uses the model cohort median shown (same county, or same state and population band), not a city observation. |
| Unemployment | 3.9% | Above median61st percentile · Stability | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2025 (11-month average) | County unemployment rate. Lower is steadier, a Stability-category factor. |
| Rental vacancy | 3.6% | Above median70th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25004 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Share of rentals empty. Lower means more pricing power. A Stability-category factor. |
| Property tax rate | 1.1% | Below median45th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25103/B25077 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median tax over median value. A direct drag on cash flow, scored in the Stability category as carrying-cost burden. |
| Months of supply | 3.5 mo | Below median38th percentile · Stability | Redfin Data Center · 2026-04-01 | Listings over sales pace. Under about 4 is a seller market, over 6 a buyer market. A Stability-category factor. |
| Days on market | 58 days | Below median26th percentile | Redfin Data Center · 2026-04-01 | How fast homes sell. Lower means more liquidity and an easier exit. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Sale-to-list ratio | 87.7% | Bottom 10%1st percentile | Redfin Data Center · 2026-04-01 | Sale price over asking. Above 100% means homes clear over ask. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Net domestic migration | -7.6/1k | Bottom quartile12th percentile | Census PEP (county) · PEP vintage 2025 | Net people moving in or out of the county, per 1,000 residents. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Building permits | 12.2/1k | Below median47th percentile | Census BPS (county) · BPS 2025 | New-construction permits per 1,000 homes. More means more supply coming. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Rent burden | 50% or more | Bottom 10%at or below the 2nd percentile | Census ACS B25071 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median rent as a share of income. Higher means less headroom for increases. Shown for context, not scored. The Census publishes this median only as "50% or more", so its national percentile is the range a tie at the code allows: 48 other ranked cities carry the same code. |
| Median year built | 1974 | Below median43rd percentile | Census ACS B25035 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Age of the housing stock. Older stock carries more capex. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Max drawdown | 51% | Bottom 10%8th percentile | Zillow ZHVI · 2026-08-31 | Worst peak-to-trough home-value decline on record. Shown for context, not scored. |
- * Job growth and unemployment are county-level (BLS LAUS, county FIPS 12099); large multi-county cities inherit their dominant county’s figures.
- Yield uses ACS median gross rent and home value (Census survey data, 2020–2024 average) because Zillow does not cover this city - not directly comparable to Zillow-based yields.
- The Census Bureau publishes this city's median gross rent as a share of income only as "50% or more" (ACS table B25071): an open-ended range, not an estimate, which the data carries as the code 51%. This page shows it as "50% or more", and its national percentile only as the range a tie at the code allows.
- Data flag: cashYield: ACS fallback (no Zillow rent+value).
- Data flag: rentGrowth: ACS CAGR fallback. The score does not use a city figure for this factor: it uses the model cohort median shown in the factor table.
Where to go next from South Bay
Every link below is this market's own data taken one step further: its neighbours in the ranking, the same numbers side by side, or the same numbers in a calculator you can change.
Nearby in the Florida rankings, and national look-alikes
- Florida City, FLGrade A · score 67/100 · yield 8.2% · $368,313 · #237 nationalZillow ZHVI $54k (2000) to $368k (2026), +577%
- Pensacola, FLGrade A · score 67/100 · yield 7.5% · $266,727 · #241 nationalZillow ZHVI $104k (2000) to $267k (2026), +157%
- Eustis, FLGrade A · score 67/100 · yield 5.9% · $336,200 · #284 nationalZillow ZHVI $100k (2000) to $336k (2026), +238%
- Greenacres, FLGrade A · score 66/100 · yield 9.0% · $282,470 · #289 nationalZillow ZHVI $73k (2000) to $282k (2026), +288%
- Elgin, TXGrade B · score 67/100 · yield 7.9% · $267,904 · #278 nationalZillow ZHVI $93k (2000) to $268k (2026), +188%
- Dickinson, TXGrade A · score 67/100 · yield 6.9% · $267,085 · #277 nationalZillow ZHVI $104k (2001) to $267k (2026), +158%
- Pooler, GAGrade A · score 67/100 · yield 6.2% · $341,902 · #275 nationalZillow ZHVI $138k (2000) to $342k (2026), +148%
Compare South Bay head to head
- South Bay vs Florida City vs ElginThe pre-filled matchup: nearest in-state rank and closest national grade.
- South Bay vs Pensacola, FLGrade A · yield 7.5%
- South Bay vs Dickinson, TXGrade A · yield 6.9%
- Pick your own opponentAny of the 5,233 tracked cities.
Underwrite a South Bay deal
- Cap rateOpens on South Bay's own entry price and rent. Change either one.
- Cash flow & DSCRMonthly cash flow and DSCR, prefilled with this market's numbers.
- Mortgage paymentP&I on South Bay's entry price at the assumptions shown above.
- All marketsCompare South Bay against 4,812 ranked cities.
- Florida ZIP CodesEvery Florida ZIP Code area (Census ZCTAs), scored separately from the city rankings.
- Ranked listsSix lists, each with a disclosed entry rule.
Ranked lists: Highest yield · Cheapest vs. income · Rent covers the mortgage · Under $200k · Fastest-growing · Most stable
For learning, not advice. A market screen from public data - not a forecast, not underwriting, not a recommendation to buy anywhere.