Benton’s current Zillow ZHVI, a typical city home value, is $242,653; its Zillow ZORI, a typical observed monthly market rent, is $1,469. Combining those distinct Zillow measures produces a 7.3% gross yield before property tax, insurance, maintenance, financing, vacancy, management, or capital costs. The ZHVI is 3.3x city median household income, an affordability screen rather than a household budget.
ACS describes 16,230 city housing units, with a 5.3% vacancy rate and renters occupying 31.8% of occupied units. Tenure is citywide context, not a given address’s tenant pool. ACS reports a $212,700 median owner-reported home value and $1,072 median gross rent, including contract rent and selected utilities. These surveyed occupied-housing measures differ in construction and period from Zillow’s typical value and observed market-rent measures, so compare them for context but never average them.
Within the city, 40.2% of renter households pay at least 30% of income toward rent. The housing stock is 80.7% single-family and 3.7% large multifamily; this composition does not identify rentable supply. Units vacant for rent account for 35.4% of all vacant units; that ACS vacancy-reason survey share does not measure available investment inventory or prove that a particular rental will lease quickly. Population is 36,595, up 2.6% between overlapping ACS survey vintages; boundary and sampling differences limit interpretation. Median household income is $72,876, unemployment is 3.4%, and poverty is 8.1%. These are descriptive demand constraints, not evidence of causality or individual tenant performance.
At the county level in Saline County, the stated property-tax rate is 0.618% and Realtor counted 555 active listings, both county context rather than Benton measures. In the broader Little Rock metro, months of supply were 3.6 and 24.9% of listings had price drops; metro supply and listing adjustments should not be assigned to the city. The national Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate was 6.69%, a national financing benchmark rather than a local borrowing quote.
Underwriting remains limited by citywide averages and survey measures, the absence of property-specific operating records, and the fact that gross yield excludes every operating and financing cost. Before drawing a property conclusion, verify address-level condition and year built, asking rent and lease terms, actual utilities, taxes and assessments, insurance and hazard exposure, maintenance and capital needs, occupancy history, comparable listings, zoning, and any association rules. Recalculate net cash flow only after those documents are available.