Alexandria, MN

Alexandria, MN is best treated as a decision file with a useful current cross-section but an incomplete rent trend. Zillow's asking-rent index is $1,283 and its home-value index is $352,275 as of 2026-06-30; that pair is direct level evidence, not a rent-growth series. Zillow reports a 3.12% annual change for the home-value index, while the supplied gross yield is 4.37%. Yet the 12-month rent change is unavailable. For that reason, this report does not assign a score or rank. The omission is substantive: a current asking rent, a current value index, and annual value movement cannot establish the rent movement required for a trailing-period comparison. The decision frame is therefore to examine the level relationships and source limits rather than treat the market as directionally resolved.

Zillow's rent/value economics are internally useful but incomplete. The $1,283 asking-rent index against the $352,275 home-value index produces the supplied 4.37% gross yield. That measure links an advertised-rent index with a home-value index; it is not a transaction-level capitalization rate or a record of collected rents. It excludes the operating items not supplied here, including vacancy, concessions, taxes, insurance, repairs, management, financing, and actual lease terms. Zillow's 3.12% annual home-value change is a value-index observation, whereas the unavailable trailing-12-month rent change prevents a parallel rent-growth reading. The core tension is not between contradictory Zillow figures, but between a measurable current rent/value relationship and the missing evidence needed to determine how that rent level has changed.

Census ACS places the median household income at $79,043, with supplied rent-to-income of 19.48% and price-to-income of 4.46. These are market-level ratio screens, not a determination of what any household can afford after taxes, debt, household size, or other expenses. HUD's FY2026 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent is $991, while Zillow's asking-rent index is $1,283, a $292 difference and a 29.5% premium by the supplied ratio. HUD Fair Market Rent is a program benchmark, while Zillow measures asking rents; neither measure identifies executed lease payments. The affordability boundary is therefore clear but narrow: income, asking rent, home values, and Fair Market Rent point to different reference populations and purposes, so they should not be collapsed into a single household-burden conclusion.

Labor, permits, and resale data produce a mixed timing-sensitive supply reading. BLS LAUS reports metro employment down 0.78% over the 12 months through 2026-05. The Census Building Permits Survey reports 326 permitted homes through 2026 YTD M06, including 152 in buildings with 5 or more units, or 46.6% of permits, with 8.24 permits per 1,000 residents. Permits are authorizations rather than completed or occupied homes, so they cannot be directly netted against current resale inventory. Redfin, as of 2026-05-01, shows 2.9 months of supply versus 3.3 previously, median days on market of 14 versus 31, and a 99.6% sale-to-list ratio. At the same time, price drops reached 37.59%, up from 30.67%. Shorter market time and lower listed supply coexist here with more price reductions; the packet does not reveal sale volume, construction completions, buyer mix, or the reasons behind individual reductions.

IRS migration data aggregated from county-to-county tax-return records show 1,033 moved-in records and 1,018 moved-out records, for net migration of 15. The associated incoming adjusted gross income is $69,492 versus $66,506 for outgoing records, a supplied gap of $2,986. This is a narrow flow measure rather than a complete count of all population movement or a measure of local wage growth. HMDA adds a different lens: in 2024, purchase-mortgage occupancy evidence covers 384 purchases, of which 38 were classified as investor purchases, for a 9.9% investor share. HMDA therefore documents investor participation within the reported purchase-mortgage universe. It does not establish investor ownership across all housing, account for cash acquisitions, or show operating outcomes for investor-owned homes.

FEMA's National Risk Index supplies the packet's hazard evidence. It identifies inland flood as the top hazard and water as the hazard type, with a National Risk Index score of 44.3 and a climate loss ratio of 0.000832. The score and loss ratio are FEMA risk measures, not a statement about a particular building, insurance policy, or current repair bill. They also do not supply a premium, deductible, tax burden, utility charge, maintenance expense, mitigation cost, or prior-loss record. This is important for interpreting Zillow's 4.37% gross yield: a gross yield is not a net-income measure and cannot absorb unspecified cost exposure. FEMA provides a market-level risk signal, while the packet lacks the cost-level records needed to translate that signal into an operating-cost assessment.

The evidence leaves a practical diligence sequence rather than a settled market conclusion. For rent decisions, the unresolved comparison is between Zillow asking rents, HUD's Fair Market Rent benchmark, and current executed lease terms, concessions, renewal terms, and tenant-paid utilities. For ownership decisions, the unresolved comparison is between Zillow's gross yield and an operating ledger that separates taxes, insurance, repairs, management, vacancy, financing, and flood-related coverage or mitigation. Census Building Permits data need to be separated into authorizations, starts, completions, and occupancy before being weighed against Redfin's resale supply, market time, sale-to-list ratio, and price-drop share. IRS and HMDA evidence can then be checked against current buyer occupancy and financing records. This approach preserves the direct evidence while keeping the missing 12-month Zillow rent change, and therefore the absence of a score or rank, central to the decision.