Williams County presents a price-appreciation case with no published rent anchor: investors able to obtain property-level leases and flood insurance should investigate, while yield-led buyers should be cautious. Zillow’s county median home value is $187,687, up 3.83%. FHFA’s annual repeat-transaction HPI rose 5.37%, and its cumulative five-year change is 49.06%. Those measures point in the same direction, but their supplied observation labels and methods differ; the HPI is not a home value and the rates should not be combined.
Market asking rent is not published, so gross yield cannot be computed. HUD’s two-bedroom FMR of $973 per month is a payment standard, not a market-rent estimate and cannot fill that gap. The 1.05% effective property-tax rate is a material carrying-cost input, but it should be applied from a parcel tax bill rather than assumed from the county median. Lease comparables, vacancy, operating expenses, financing and parcel assessments are needed before any cash-flow conclusion.
Realtor.com’s MLS listing market looks less tight on visible supply: median asking price fell 1.28%, while active listings rose 14.41% to 68. Listings took a median 39 days, 13.66% had price cuts, and the pending-to-active ratio was 80.74%. These are asking-price, marketing-time and visible-supply signals—not closed-sale prices or proof of buyer demand alone. QCEW reports 16,008 annual covered jobs at county workplaces, down 1.95%; Manufacturing is the largest disclosed private supersector. Net migration was negative 46 tax-return households, and average AGI of outbound movers exceeded inbound movers by $2,126. Investor mortgages numbered 21 of 402 purchases, or 5.22%, limiting the observed investor footprint rather than demonstrating broad competition.
Inland flood is the dominant hazard, with modeled annual expected loss of 0.10% of building value; this county-level ratio does not substitute for an address-level flood zone, elevation, claims history, deductible, or insurance quote. The thesis could fail if lease comps reveal inadequate rent, flood insurance or repairs overwhelm carrying costs, or local buyer liquidity weakens beyond the MLS snapshot. Next checks are property-specific rents and taxes, flood and insurance diligence, and closed-sale/pending detail; without them, entry pricing, net yield and resale-liquidity conclusions remain unproved.