Harmon County presents a low-entry-price but thin-evidence underwriting tension: cautious buyers should test whether a $65,011 Zillow median home value can support durable occupancy and carrying costs, while recognizing just four active MLS listings. At their shared observation label, Zillow’s county value was down 21.69% year over year but Realtor.com’s median MLS listing price was up 22.14%. The first is a home-value measure and the second is an asking-price measure; their divergence is not evidence of closed-sale pricing or buyer demand.
Market asking rent is not published, so gross yield cannot be computed. HUD’s $937 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent is a payment standard, not an estimate of asking rent, and cannot replace it in a yield calculation. The effective property-tax rate is 0.67%, with a $537 median annual tax. These tax figures identify one carrying-cost input, but absent market rent, vacancy, insurance, repairs and financing terms, the record cannot establish property-level cash flow.
Demand evidence is mixed and narrow. QCEW reports 641 annual average covered jobs at county workplaces, up 0.31%, and an $858 average weekly wage. Trade, transportation, and utilities accounts for 30.42% of private covered employment, a concentration worth checking; QCEW is neither resident employment nor unemployment. Tax-return migration was net positive by 21 households, yet incoming movers’ average AGI was $8,589 below that of outgoing movers. Of eight purchase mortgages, 25% were non-occupant purchases, so investor participation is visible but rests on a very small buyer base.
Strong wind is the dominant hazard, and modeled expected annual building-value loss equals 0.19%; it frames parcel-level insurance and mitigation review rather than a dollar-loss estimate. The MLS price-reduced share signals seller concessions, but listing metrics are not sales outcomes. FHFA annual repeat-transaction HPI is not published, so no repeat-sales index can corroborate or challenge Zillow’s direction. Next checks are closed-sale comparables, market rents, lease-up and vacancy, insurance quotes, wind exposure, property condition and title/tax detail; without them, price support, income coverage and hazard-adjusted operating costs remain unresolved.