Decatur's Zillow ZHVI typical city home value is $224,900, while Zillow ZORI typical observed market rent is $1,082 monthly. Their relationship gives a 5.8% gross yield before operating costs, vacancy loss and financing. ZHVI is 3.65x the city ACS median household income, and annual ZORI is 21.1% of that income. These ratios frame broad affordability and revenue potential, not borrower qualification, tenant capacity or property cash flow.
City ACS housing context counts 25,467 units, with a 6.9% vacancy rate and renters occupying 36.7% of occupied units. The ACS median owner-reported home value is $210,200; median gross rent for surveyed occupied rental housing is $896 and includes selected utilities. These occupied-housing measures differ in definition and period from Zillow's typical home value and observed market rent. They should not be averaged, read as transaction prices or substituted for each other.
Direct city depth shows that 46.1% of renter households are rent-burdened, spending at least 30% of income on gross rent. Single-family structures make up 75.7% of housing units and large multifamily structures 4.9%; this describes stock, not available investment inventory. Among vacant units, 24.6% are classified as for rent, which does not predict a specific unit's lease-up. The population estimate is 57,361, up 5.3% between overlapping ACS vintages; that change is not annualized and may include boundary effects. Median household income is $61,563, with poverty at 13.1% and unemployment at 4.5%, descriptive demand constraints that do not prove causation or tenant quality.
In county listing context, Limestone County records a median 66 days on market; this is not a Decatur city measure. In separate county listing context, Morgan County records 60 days, likewise not a city measure. The broader Decatur metro reports 3.9 months of supply, price drops on 27.5% of listings and a 97.1% sale-to-list ratio, informing regional negotiation conditions without measuring the city alone. The national Freddie Mac mortgage rate is 6.66%, a financing benchmark rather than a local borrowing quote.
The central limitation is aggregation: citywide estimates and county, metro and national context cannot identify an asset's rent, condition, expenses or resale liquidity. Gross yield omits taxes, insurance, maintenance, management, turnover, vacancy, capital work and debt service. Verify the address's county, title and permitted use; obtain tax and insurance quotes and an inspection; test rent, concessions and utilities against property comparables; review lease and turnover history; price management and financing; rebuild cash flow under vacancy and repair stress.