Newark’s Zillow profile is a screening baseline, not a property return. ZHVI typical city home value is $371,502, while ZORI typical observed market rent is $2,113 monthly, implying a 6.83% gross yield before every operating and financing cost. ZHVI rose 1.72% year over year and ZORI rose 4.04%, without establishing a future path. Against city ACS median household income, ZHVI is 4.83x and annual ZORI is 32.97%, indicating affordability pressure without measuring a specific household’s budget.
The city has 9,921 housing units; 49.28% of occupied units are renter-occupied, and citywide vacancy is 13.38%. These are stock and tenure context, not leasing evidence for a unit. ACS reports a $382,500 median value for owner-occupied homes and $1,654 median gross rent, including contract rent plus selected utilities. Those surveyed ACS measures differ in concept and period from Zillow’s typical value and observed market rent; averaging them would be misleading.
Among city renters for whom burden is calculated, 66.24% are rent-burdened. Single-family structures represent 58.62% of city housing and large multifamily structures 16.58%. Of vacant city units, 50.87% are classified for rent; this is survey context, not available investment inventory. The ACS city population is 30,330, down 9.32% between overlapping vintages; the change is not annualized and may reflect boundary changes. City median household income is $76,912, unemployment is 6.70%, and poverty is 27.73%. These facts describe demand constraints, not causes, lease-up speed or tenant quality.
New Castle County’s Zillow gross yield is 6.22%, a county benchmark that does not measure Newark property economics. New Castle County’s Realtor median market time is 36 days and the county price-reduced share is 15.38%; both describe county listings, not city liquidity or a subject property’s sale time. The national Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate is 6.66%, national financing context rather than a Newark quote. Keep county listing evidence and the national rate separate from city measures.
Aggregates omit property condition, legal use, unit mix, lease terms, utilities, concessions, turnover, delinquency, management burden and capital needs. Verify the asking price against property-level comparables; inspect major systems; confirm taxes, insurance, flood and hazard terms; review permits, zoning and rental rules; and obtain leases, payment history and utility responsibility. Build property-specific cash flow with realistic vacancy, repairs, reserves and financing; gross yield and citywide vacancy are neither net return nor lease-up probability.