San Augustine County is a price-direction screen with an income-underwriting gap: Zillow’s county median home value is $178,862, up 2.93% year over year, but no market asking-rent series is published. The central tension is that a rising value measure does not establish income coverage. This record is most relevant to investigators who can collect subject-level rents and flood information; income-led underwriting should remain cautious until those inputs exist.
HUD’s published Fair Market Rent is a payment standard rather than market rent, so it cannot be substituted for rent or used to calculate gross yield. The 0.68% effective property-tax rate is a county-level tax-burden measure, not a subject bill. Realtor.com’s MLS snapshot shows median listing price up 21.11% year over year, alongside 37 active listings, 85 median days on market, 15.56% with price reductions, and a 25.68% pending-to-active ratio. Asking-price growth differs from Zillow’s value growth, but neither is closed-sale pricing; active and pending listings measure visible supply and listing flow, not buyer demand alone.
QCEW annual covered employment at county workplaces fell 1.74%. Construction represented 25.32% of private covered jobs as the largest disclosed private supersector, not the county’s whole economy. Tax-return migration was net positive, while in-movers’ average AGI exceeded out-movers’ by a calculated $533; that is a limited mover-income signal rather than proof of rental or buyer demand. Investors accounted for 4 of 58 purchase mortgages, or 6.9%, leaving little county-level evidence of broad investor competition.
The dominant hazard is inland flood, alongside modeled annual climate loss equal to 0.14% of building value. That is a county model, not an insurance quote or parcel-level flood determination. No FHFA annual repeat-transaction HPI observation is published, so Zillow’s direction has no supplied independent index check. Missing closed-sale prices, market rents, property insurance and flood-zone data, debt terms, assessed value, and property condition prevent gross-yield, sale-price, and asset-level carrying-cost conclusions.