Charleston, IL

Charleston, IL presents a decision frame with direct evidence on values, asking rents, affordability, sales conditions, migration and climate exposure, but with a decisive gap in rent history. Population is 46,777. Zillow does not publish sufficient rent history to calculate a trailing-12-month rent change; that change is unavailable, Charleston is intentionally unranked, and this report does not assign a score or rank. A current rent observation and a home-value change cannot replace the missing trailing comparison. Dates also matter: Zillow is dated 2026-06-30, BLS covers the 12 months to 2026-05, Census Building Permits cover 2026 year-to-date through M06, and Redfin is dated 2026-05-01. These measures cover different market segments and time windows. Their coexistence makes a useful factual record, but not a synchronized measure of rental-market direction.

Zillow reports an asking-rent index of 778 and a home-value index of 147294 at 2026-06-30; the supplied year-over-year home-value change is .064. The reported gross yield of .0634 places current asking rent beside current value in a preliminary income-to-value screen. It is not a net operating result: the packet contains no vacancy, collections, operating-expense, financing, tax or unit-mix measure. The home-value series carries a year-over-year movement, whereas the rent series does not. Accordingly, it would be unsupported to call rents rising, falling, accelerating or decelerating from these Zillow data. The unresolved test is whether current advertised rents and executed lease terms align with Zillow's asking-rent index, and whether the value index covers a comparable housing mix. The packet supplies neither comparison and no rent-growth substitute.

Census ACS reports median household income of 56478. Against it, the supplied rent-to-income measure is .1654 and price-to-income is 2.61. HUD's FY2026 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent is 965. The Zillow asking-rent reading is .807 relative to that HUD benchmark, a difference of 187 from the supplied figures. These are affordability boundaries, not verified tenant burden or unit economics. Census ACS income is household-level, HUD Fair Market Rent is an administratively set two-bedroom benchmark, and Zillow provides asking-rent and home-value indexes whose bedroom and housing mix are not stated in the packet. A lower current Zillow reading than HUD's benchmark therefore cannot establish that a particular lease, household group or housing type is affordable. A like-for-like comparison of rent, bedroom mix and relevant household income remains absent.

The BLS LAUS measure shows metro labor change of -.0118 over the 12 months to 2026-05. On the new-supply side, the Census Building Permits Survey reports 20 total permits through M06, with 10 in the 5+ category, a rate of .43 permits per 1,000 population and a 50% 5+ share. Permits are an authorization measure rather than evidence of completed or occupied housing. Redfin's for-sale data show 1.9 months of supply versus 1.8 previously, a .1-month increase; median days on market were 27 versus 28; sale-to-list was .9959; and price drops were .2371 versus .2556, a .0185 lower share. Redfin describes for-sale conditions, while Census Building Permits describes permitted additions to housing supply. The snapshot contains a somewhat larger supply measure alongside faster sale timing and fewer price reductions, but it does not independently resolve rental demand or rental pricing.

IRS county-to-county tax-return migration aggregated to the market reports 1137 moved in and 1278 moved out, for net migration of -141. AGI-in is 45360, AGI-out is 55562, and the supplied AGI gap is -10202. Those migration and income fields establish a direction and composition difference in the IRS aggregate, but they do not establish why households moved or how any move affected rents. HMDA adds a separate lens: in 2024, it records 386 purchases, including 46 investor purchases, for an investor share of .1192. HMDA is purchase-mortgage occupancy evidence, not a complete count of all buyer activity, all rental units or all investor participation. The IRS and HMDA measures are therefore complementary rather than interchangeable: one tracks aggregated movement and AGI fields, while the other identifies mortgage-purchase occupancy evidence.

FEMA's National Risk Index identifies inland flood as the top hazard, within the water hazard type. FEMA reports a National Risk Index score of 70.4 and a climate-loss ratio of .001778. The loss ratio is the available cost-level evidence in this packet, but the packet supplies no interpretation threshold for the score or ratio, no insurance-premium record, no repair-cost record and no reserve-cost record. FEMA's expected annual loss evidence is market-level evidence; it cannot establish exposure, coverage, premium or loss experience for a particular building. The risk record is therefore material as a disclosed uncertainty rather than a quantified operating-cost conclusion. Any reading of the Zillow gross yield as a complete income measure remains incomplete without cost evidence that can be compared with this FEMA risk context.

The practical due-diligence synthesis is a set of unresolved evidence tests rather than a rent, landlord or investment conclusion. Dated advertised rents and executed lease terms would test whether Zillow's current asking-rent index reflects realized rental terms and would fill the missing history that prevents a trailing-12-month rent change. Unit and bedroom mix, turnover, vacancy, collections and operating-cost records would clarify the limits of the reported gross yield. Permit authorization and completion status, together with Redfin listing and closed-sale records, would separate future authorized supply from current for-sale conditions. IRS movement definitions and HMDA occupancy categories would clarify what their respective demand and investor measures include. Finally, FEMA hazard documentation and actual cost records would put the .001778 loss ratio into a usable expense context. Until those records are added, the evidence supports no score, rank or directional rental-market conclusion.