Coldwater, MI

Coldwater, Michigan’s metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area has a population of 45,300 and a decision record with meaningful but non-comparable signals. Zillow reports asking-rent and home-value indexes; Census ACS and HUD describe income and a rent benchmark; BLS, Census Building Permits, and Redfin cover labor, permitting, and the for-sale setting; IRS and HMDA track separate participation channels; FEMA frames area-level hazard evidence. This is intentionally unranked: Zillow does not publish a trailing-12-month rent change in the packet. The report therefore assigns no score or rank. Its decision frame is not a directional call, but a map of material questions a renter, landlord, or small investor can investigate when rent momentum cannot be calculated.

At June 30, 2026, Zillow’s asking-rent index is $1,253 and its home-value index is $210,576. The home-value index is 7.47 percent above its prior-year reading, while the stated gross yield is 7.14 percent. Those figures make price movement observable, but not rent momentum: the absent Zillow 12-month rent change cannot be inferred from the current index level, gross yield, or value change. Zillow’s yield is a gross relationship between its rent and value measures, not a measure of operating costs, vacancies, financing, taxes, insurance, or a property return. Accordingly, the key Zillow tension is a rising reported value index paired with an unknown year-over-year rent direction, rather than evidence that income kept pace with value.

Census ACS reports median household income of $63,724, with supplied rent-to-income and price-to-income measures of 0.2359 and 3.3. HUD’s FY2026 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent is $973. Zillow’s $1,253 asking-rent index is $280 higher and 1.287 times that HUD benchmark. This is an affordability boundary, not a finding that a typical household pays either amount: ACS income is a household-income measure, HUD FMR is a two-bedroom program benchmark, and Zillow is an asking-rent index. The packet does not provide paid rents, household-specific burdens, bedroom matching, or the period alignment needed to treat these series as interchangeable. Their gap identifies a measurement question rather than a conclusion about affordability.

Labor and supply data pull in more than one direction. BLS LAUS shows metro employment down 1.29 percent over the 12 months through May 2026. Census Building Permits Survey reports 42 permits year to date through June 2026, 0.93 permits per 1,000 people, and zero in the 5+ category; the supplied 5+ share is zero. Redfin, as of May 1, 2026, reports 3.2 months of supply versus 3.9 in the prior reading, but median days on market are 55 versus 39, sale-to-list is 0.9592, and price-drop shares are 0.2787 versus 0.2752. Fewer months of supply sits beside slower marketing time and a slightly higher disclosed price-drop share. These sources measure different stages—permitting and resale listings—not a single supply conclusion.

Movement and mortgage occupancy evidence is similarly bounded. IRS county-to-county tax-return migration, aggregated to the market, records 964 movers in and 1,050 movers out, for net migration of -86. Associated AGI is $53,134 inbound and $52,173 outbound, a supplied $961 gap. HMDA’s 2024 purchase-mortgage occupancy evidence records 410 total purchases, 21 investor purchases, and an investor share of 5.12 percent. IRS movement and HMDA investor participation are not the same demand measure: neither tells whether a mover rents, and HMDA’s mortgage-occupancy count is not an all-transaction ownership count. The figures show limited, distinct channels that require separation from claims about tenant demand or marketwide investor control.

FEMA’s National Risk Index identifies inland flood as the top hazard, classified here as water, with a risk score of 51.8 and a climate loss ratio of 0.001088. This is expected annual loss evidence at the index’s geographic scope, not a statement about any address, building, insurance premium, repair bill, or realized loss. The packet contains no insurance, tax, utility, maintenance, or repair cost measure. The available Zillow price and asking-rent indexes and HUD FMR are market payment or value benchmarks, not operating-cost evidence. Hazard is therefore a separate uncertainty in the decision record and cannot be folded into Zillow yield, Redfin conditions, or an assumed net return.

Taken together, the record supports a disciplined separation of questions rather than a buy, sell, rent, or pricing conclusion. For a renter, the unresolved issue is the relation between asking rents, HUD’s two-bedroom benchmark, and actual paid rents; for a landlord or small investor, it is whether Zillow’s gross yield survives the missing cost, vacancy, and realized-rent information. A next-stage file would also distinguish the 42 permits from completed availability, reconcile Redfin’s lower months of supply with longer marketing time, and place IRS migration alongside—not inside—HMDA mortgage occupancy evidence. FEMA’s inland-flood indicator requires its own geographic and cost documentation before it can alter any net-income analysis. Most importantly, because Zillow’s 12-month rent change is unavailable, no score or rank is assigned to Coldwater.