Bay City, MI
Investigate Bay City if you prioritize affordability and constrained new supply; avoid it if you need strong employment or migration momentum.
Why this market scores where it does
Written from the figures on this page and then checked against them: every number below had to appear in the source record or recompute from two that did, or the text was rewritten.
Investigate Bay City if you prioritize affordability and constrained new supply; avoid it if you need strong employment or migration momentum. The $188,925 median value equals 3.06 times median income, and reported gross yield is 7.48%; those metrics support investigation but do not remove demand risk.
Opportunity comes from tight listings and little construction: months of supply is 2.8, median days on market is 16, and total permits are 46, or 0.45 per thousand residents. Median asking rent is $1,178, up 3.49% year over year, while rent equals 22.88% of median household income. That pairing allows current-rent underwriting to be checked directly against local household income.
Risk sits in weak expansion signals. CES jobs rose only 0.33%, net migration was 64 households, and movers arriving had lower average income than movers leaving. Buyers should test property-level flood exposure and insurance costs because inland flood is the dominant hazard; those costs are not published here.
Frequently Asked Investor Questions
What are the headline purchase and rent metrics?
What do tax filings show about household flows?
What climate risk is identified, and are insurance costs available?
Investor Quick Takeaways
Computed from the current Zillow rent and home-value medians.
Zillow ZORI rent growth trend over trailing 12 months.
Originated investment purchase share (CFPB HMDA).
Annualized loss ratio evaluated for flood & hurricane risk.
Test the market, then test the deal
Keep Bay City as the starting point or move into a more specific property and rent check.
The current market in eight signals
Fast-moving Redfin conditions sit beside the slower fundamentals so a buyer can separate today's negotiating climate from the long-run investment case.
What each component measures
Weights are published, not hidden, and the arithmetic is shown. Five components, each measured as a national percentile across all tracked metros.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job growth | 60 | 30% | 18.00 |
| Rent trend | 53 | 25% | 13.25 |
| Affordability | 62 | 15% | 9.30 |
| Supply pressure | 93 | 15% | 13.95 |
| Climate risk | 58 | 15% | 8.70 |
| Published score | 63 | ||
CES jobs rose 0.33% year over year -> employment is a weak demand support.
Median asking rent rose 3.49% to $1,178 -> rent momentum is positive but modest.
Rent equals 22.88% of median household income and price is 3.06 times income -> affordability supports investigation despite softer growth signals.
Months of supply is 2.8, yet 33.91% of listings had price drops -> tight inventory coexists with frequent repricing.
Inland flood is the dominant hazard and the annual climate loss ratio is 0.001292 -> property-level flood exposure and insurance costs require verification.
What this market costs and what it earns
Every derived ratio below recomputes from the same source record used by the article and score.
What is being built, and for whom
Permits are the 12-to-24 month early warning. The total matters less than the mix: apartments compete with a rental the day they open.
Demand, and the competition for it
Tax filings say how many households moved and what they earn; mortgage disclosures say how many local purchases went to someone who will not live there. Moves between counties inside this metro are netted out of both flow figures.
What would make this a bad buy
Generated from the same figures with the instruction to argue against the score, and published unedited. A page that only agrees with itself is an advertisement.
Three ways the case breaks
- CES employment grew just 0.33% year over year, leaving little employment momentum in the current record.
- Net migration was only 64 households, and inbound movers' average AGI was $1,315 below outbound movers' average AGI.
- Inland flood is the dominant hazard, but the record does not publish property-level exposure or insurance costs.
Move from the metro average to local evidence
County pages carry tax, migration, listing and hazard records. City pages appear only where direct city price, rent and Census evidence pass the publication gate.
No city in this metro has passed the current city evidence gate.
Metros that behave like Bay City
Nearest neighbours on price level, income, yield and job growth — not on geography. Every market page gets a different peer set, which is the point.
| Metro | Score | Price | Rent | Yield | Job Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bay City, MI (Target) | 63 | $189k | $1,178 | 7.5% | ▲ 0.3% |
| Lima, OH | 66 | $196k | $1,177 | 7.2% | ▲ 0.1% |
| Altoona, PA | 73 | $180k | $1,117 | 7.4% | ▼ 0.1% |
| Sunbury, PA | 73 | $177k | $1,037 | 7.0% | ▲ 0.5% |
| Albertville, AL | 39 | $249k | $1,501 | 7.2% | ▲ 0.5% |
Where every figure came from
“Checked nightly” means every source is re-pulled and re-verified each night. It does not mean every source moves nightly — the release column tells you how fresh each number can possibly be.
| Dataset Source | Method | Release Period | Pulled Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Census ACS 5-year — household income | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-26 |
| Census ACS 5-year — population | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS CES — payroll employment | direct | CES SM current | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS LAUS — resident employment | direct | LAUS current | 2026-07-26 |
| BLS QCEW — county employment and wages | direct | annual county employment and wages 2025 vs 2024 | 2026-07-31 |
| OMB/BLS delineation — metro geography | direct | OMB July 2023 delineation | 2026-07-30 |
| Census Building Permits Survey — permitted units | direct | BPS through 2026 | 2026-07-26 |
| Census ACS 5-year — city population, households and housing | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-29 |
| Census ACS 5-year — county housing value, tenure and stock | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-30 |
| Census ACS 5-year — cities and communities | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-30 |
| FEMA National Risk Index — hazard loss ratios | modelled | NRI counties (FEMA ArcGIS) | 2026-07-26 |
| FHFA House Price Index — annual county appreciation | direct | annual county HPI 2025 | 2026-07-28 |
| HMDA / CFPB — purchases by occupancy type | direct | HMDA 2024 purchase originations | 2026-07-26 |
| HUD Fair Market Rents — Section 8 standard | direct | FY2026 FMR | 2026-07-26 |
| HUD USPS crosswalk and Small Area FMRs — ZIP rent fallback | direct | ZIP-CBSA 2025Q4 + SAFMR FY2026 | 2026-07-26 |
| IRS SOI — county migration and mover income | direct | SOI migration 2022-2023 | 2026-07-26 |
| Freddie Mac PMMS — mortgage rates | direct | week of 2026-07-23 | 2026-07-27 |
| Census ACS 5-year — effective property tax | direct | ACS 2024 5-year | 2026-07-27 |
| Realtor.com Economic Research — county listing inventory | direct | county inventory 2026-06 | 2026-07-28 |
| Redfin Data Center — inventory, days on market, and price cuts | direct | metro tracker through 2026-05-01 | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI and ZORI — county values and rents | direct | county ZHVI/ZORI 2026-06 | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI — metro home values | direct | Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZHVI — city home values | direct | zillow_zhvi_city.csv | 2026-07-29 |
| Zillow ZORI — metro market rents | direct | Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_sa_month.csv | 2026-07-26 |
| Zillow ZORI — city market rents | direct | zillow_zori_city.csv | 2026-07-29 |
| Zillow ZORI — ZIP market rents | direct | ZORI ZIP 2026-06 | 2026-07-26 |