Talbot County presents a tension between modest observed value growth and unmeasured market rent: investors needing a defensible income case should be cautious, while buyers able to verify leases, flood exposure, and parcel costs should investigate. Zillow’s 2026-06 county median home value was $189,576, up 0.81% year over year. This is a Zillow valuation observation, not a transaction-price series; no FHFA annual repeat-transaction HPI observation is supplied to corroborate or challenge its direction.
Income cannot yet anchor that value: no market asking rent is published, so gross yield cannot be computed. HUD’s two-bedroom FMR is $973 per month, but it is a payment standard, not evidence of local asking rent, and must not substitute for rent. Carrying costs also require a parcel check. The county effective property-tax rate is 1.16%, and median annual tax is $1,356; these county measures do not establish the tax bill on a Zillow-median-value home.
QCEW’s 2025 annual county workplace series reports 984 covered jobs, up 13.63%, with a $982 average weekly covered-worker wage. Construction, the largest disclosed private supersector, employed 270 workers, or 36.99% of private covered employment. These are workplace jobs, not resident employment, unemployment, or a forecast. Tax-return migration shows a net outflow of 34 households, despite incoming households’ average AGI exceeding outgoing households’ by $3,611, a calculation. Two investor purchases among 34 total purchases, or 5.88%, suggest limited measured non-owner buyer participation but a thin count.
Inland flood is the dominant hazard, and the modeled annual climate loss is 0.10% of building value; this is a county-level model, not a parcel flood determination or insurance quote. Realtor.com median listing price, active listings, days on market, and price-reduced share are not published, preventing an assessment of visible MLS supply, seller concessions, and marketing time. Next checks are property-specific flood maps and insurance, current market-rent leases, parcel tax bills, and closed-sale comps; without them, neither cash-flow nor exit-price underwriting is supported.