Modesto’s Zillow ZHVI typical home value is $449,607 and its ZORI typical observed market rent is $1,986 a month. That pairing implies a 5.3% gross yield before every operating and financing cost. The home-value measure is down 0.7% year over year while observed rent is up 0.5%, a modestly better gross-income relationship, not evidence of net profitability. The value equals 5.6x city ACS median household income, and annual ZORI equals 29.8% of that income, signaling meaningful affordability pressure.
The city survey counts 75,752 housing units; renters hold 41.1% of occupied units, while the overall housing-unit vacancy rate is 3.6%. These citywide shares frame tenure and stock utilization but cannot establish occupancy for a specific asset. ACS surveyed occupied housing reports a $442,700 median home value and $1,690 median gross rent, which includes selected utilities. Those measures differ in concept and period from Zillow’s typical value and observed market rent and should not be blended.
Direct city depth is mixed. Some 57.4% of renter households are rent-burdened, while single-family properties comprise 76.7% of all units and large multifamily properties 7.5%. Units listed as vacant for rent account for 35.6% of vacant units, a reason share rather than available inventory. Population is 3.1% higher across the overlapping ACS vintages, subject to possible boundary change; median household income is $79,891. Poverty at 13.3% and unemployment at 7.2% are demand constraints, not causes or property-level tenant outcomes.
In Stanislaus County, Realtor context shows a 44-day median market time and 15.7% of listings price-reduced, useful for negotiating context but not city-specific liquidity. In the broader Modesto metro, employment grew 0.7% year over year and for-sale supply was 2.2 months, pairing mild labor growth with limited measured resale inventory without predicting city prices. Nationally, Freddie Mac’s 30-year mortgage rate was 6.58%, a financing benchmark rather than a Modesto borrowing quote.
Underwriting should therefore treat the headline yield as a screening metric. It omits property taxes, insurance, utilities paid by the owner, repairs, capital expenditure, management, turnover, vacancy and debt service; Stanislaus County tax and climate records also cannot price an individual parcel. Before acting, verify the unit’s achievable rent and lease status, inspect condition and deferred maintenance, obtain parcel-specific tax and insurance quotes, confirm hazard exposure and legal use, model financing and reserves, and compare recent truly comparable sales and rentals.