New Orleans’ Zillow typical home value is $247,590 and typical observed monthly market rent is $1,664. Together they imply an 8.1% gross yield before every operating cost, not a cap rate. The value declined 2.0% year over year while rent increased 1.2%. At 4.4x city median household income, and with annualized Zillow rent equal to 35.3% of that income, affordability is a material constraint before utilities and other household expenses.
ACS surveyed occupied housing instead shows a $315,700 median home value and $1,251 median gross rent, which includes selected utilities. These measures differ from Zillow in concept and period and should not be substituted or averaged. Citywide, 48.8% of occupied homes are renter-occupied, while 20.3% of all housing units are vacant. This shows substantial rental tenure alongside broad vacancy, but does not identify units that are rentable, comparable, or economically available.
Direct city depth adds caution. Rent burden affects 59.8% of renters under the ACS measure. Housing stock is 55.9% single-family and 11.8% large multifamily, making property type central to expense and rent-comparable assumptions. Only 18.9% of vacant units are classified as for rent; other vacancy reasons mean total vacancy is not available investment inventory. The ACS population estimate is 371,853, down 4.9% between overlapping five-year vintages; this is not an annual rate and may reflect boundary changes. Median household income is $56,631, with poverty at 22.6% and unemployment at 7.5%. These citywide constraints cannot predict a unit’s tenant quality, lease-up, or collections.
In Orleans Parish county context, active listings total 1,859 and median time on market is 80 days, offering sale-market context rather than city performance. In the broader New Orleans metro, jobs declined 0.9% year over year, months of supply was 4.8, and 29.0% of listings had price drops; these metro measures do not describe the city alone. At the national scope, the Freddie Mac mortgage rate was 6.58%, a financing benchmark rather than a borrower quote or local measure.
Treat the headline yield as a screening figure. It omits property taxes, insurance, hazard coverage, utilities, repairs, capital work, management, turnover, financing, and downtime. Next checks should include parcel tax records, binding insurance quotes, hazard reports, physical inspection and major-system ages, legal-use and permit status, current leases, utility responsibilities, management bids, and property-matched rent and sale comparables. A property-level cash-flow model should stress vacancy, collections, repairs, and financing; citywide data cannot establish achievable rent or net return.