Essex County’s screening tension is a $303,493 Zillow median home value in 2026-06 against MLS evidence of listings remaining on market and price reductions, making this a county for buyers who will verify parcel-level pricing and cautious assumptions rather than extrapolate value gains. Zillow’s county value rose 1.70% year over year, while FHFA’s 2025 repeat-transaction HPI rose 1.26% annually. The HPI is an appreciation index, not a home value; these differently dated observations use different methods and cannot be combined.
County market rent is not published, so gross yield cannot be computed. HUD’s two-bedroom FMR of $1,113 per month is a payment standard, not an estimate of asking rent, and cannot fill that gap. The effective property-tax rate is 0.57%; that is a carrying-cost input, but the record does not publish insurance premiums, utilities, repairs, vacancy, or property-level assessments. Buyers cannot turn the supplied value into a net operating conclusion without those costs and actual achieved rents.
Realtor.com’s MLS listing market showed 52 active listings, 85 median days on market—up 60.95% year over year—and a 21.49% price-reduced share, pointing to visible supply and seller concessions that deserve offer-level review. They are asking-price, supply, and marketing-time evidence—not closed-sale prices or standalone proof of buyer demand. Tax-return households showed net migration of 24, with in-movers’ average AGI $10,020 above out-movers’. Only 1 of 114 purchase mortgages went to a non-occupant investor, a 0.88% share; recorded investor competition is therefore thin, though mortgage records do not capture every buyer type.
The dominant hazard is hurricane, and modeled climate loss equals 0.14% of building value per year; it should be paired with property-specific wind, flood, elevation, deductible, and insurance evidence rather than treated as an actual loss. QCEW’s 2025 annual average reports 3,567 covered jobs at county workplaces and a $937 covered-worker weekly wage; Trade, transportation, and utilities is the largest disclosed private supersector, not the whole economy. Obtain closed-sale comparables, lease evidence, and insurance quotes: absent rent blocks yield underwriting, while absent property-level hazard costs blocks a defensible carrying-cost comparison.