Nogales, AZ

Nogales, AZ has a supplied population of 48,926, but its decision frame is defined less by size than by incomplete rent momentum. The market is intentionally unranked: Zillow does not publish a trailing-12-month rent change for the available asking-rent index. Because that 12-month rent change is unavailable, this report does not assign a score or rank. The available record still permits a cross-source review of current Zillow rent and value levels, Census ACS income, HUD rent benchmark, labor and permits, sales-market conditions, migration, mortgage occupancy, and FEMA risk. Those measures use different universes and dates, so they are not a single verdict. The core diligence question is whether the current price-and-rent relationship remains coherent when placed beside affordability boundaries, listed-home conditions, and the scope of demand evidence.

At June 30, 2026, Zillow's asking-rent index records $1,377 monthly asking rent and $282,946 home value. Zillow reports year-over-year value change of 0.0096. The packet's gross yield is 0.0584, an arithmetic headline connecting those rent and value observations rather than a statement of net operating return. The combination is internally useful: asking rent exists at a current level while values show a small positive year-over-year movement. Yet it cannot establish rent acceleration or deceleration because the comparable Zillow rent reading from 12 months earlier is absent. It also does not reveal executed lease rent, vacancy, concessions, operating expenses, or the terms beneath the index. Accordingly, price movement and current asking rent should be read as contemporaneous economics, not evidence that either side is leading the other.

Census ACS places median household income at $55,217, and Zillow's supplied rent-to-income measure is 0.2992; its price-to-income measure is 5.12. HUD's FY2026 two-bedroom Fair Market Rent is $1,129, compared with Zillow asking rent of $1,377. The resulting rent-to-FMR ratio is 1.219, and the asking-rent level is $248 above that HUD benchmark. This is an affordability boundary, not a finding that a particular household can or cannot pay a lease. Census ACS income is a household-level income statistic, HUD FMR is an administrative benchmark for a two-bedroom unit, and Zillow is an asking-rent index; unit mix, household composition, lease terms, and tenant income are not supplied. The tension is clear: the aggregate ratios provide context, but the measures should not be treated as interchangeable measures of realized housing burden.

Labor, permitted supply, and resale listings offer mixed timing signals. BLS LAUS reports metro employment change of 0.0113 over the 12 months through May 2026. Census Building Permits Survey records 360 total permits in 2026 year-to-date through M06, or 7.36 per 1,000 residents, with 0 in its 5-plus category and 0% of permits there. It is a measure of permitting, not completed housing, tenure, occupancy, or availability. Redfin, dated May 1, 2026, shows 6.4 months of supply versus 6.3 previously, while median days on market rose to 116 from 75. The sale-to-list ratio is 0.9829, and 0.2117 of listings had price drops, marginally below the prior 0.2138. More time on market accompanies only a small supply change and nearly unchanged price-reduction incidence. These Redfin observations cannot determine how BLS employment or Census permits relate to listings; their periods and market stages differ.

IRS county-to-county tax-return migration aggregated to the market counts 990 moved in and 1,146 moved out, for net migration of -156. Inbound adjusted gross income is $58,108 and outbound AGI is $48,078, a supplied gap of $10,030. The count and income readings can coexist: they describe an aggregate movement record, not identical questions about population, household formation, or rental absorption. HMDA supplies a separate financing and occupancy lens. In 2024, its purchase-mortgage evidence includes 426 total purchases, of which 17 were investor purchases, a 0.0399 investor share. That share is bounded by HMDA's purchase-mortgage occupancy evidence and should not be converted into an estimate of all buyer types or all housing demand. Read together, IRS and HMDA identify areas for verification, not a conclusion about the direction or composition of future demand.

FEMA's National Risk Index identifies inland flood, a water hazard, as the top hazard. Its risk score is 88.3 and its reported climate-loss ratio is 0.003052. These are expected-annual-loss risk evidence, not an insurance quote, a tax bill, an observed repair expense, or a property-specific loss estimate. The available level evidence is instead Zillow's $282,946 value and $1,377 asking rent, together with the stated 0.0584 gross yield. Gross yield is before unreported operating costs; neither it nor the FEMA ratio supplies an expense-adjusted cash-flow measure. The relevant tension is therefore between visible top-line economics and a disclosed hazard measure whose cost transmission is not measured here. Insurance availability, premium, deductible, mitigation requirement, and site-level exposure are not supplied. FEMA should be kept distinct from Zillow and from the sales or migration metrics rather than folded into a single return estimate.

A practical due-diligence synthesis would keep the unresolved links explicit. It would seek current local lease and unit-mix evidence to test how Zillow asking rent relates to executed rents and to HUD's two-bedroom FMR. It would reconcile the Census Building Permits Survey record with the timing and type of newly permitted supply, then compare that record with the Redfin listing measures rather than assuming one predicts the other. It would also document whether IRS tax-return migration measures and 2024 HMDA purchase-mortgage occupancy evidence cover the relevant demand channels. Finally, it would examine FEMA's inland-flood evidence alongside actual site-specific insurance and mitigation information before translating any gross yield into a cost-sensitive view. BLS labor change, Census ACS income, and Zillow values furnish context but do not close these gaps. With Zillow's 12-month rent change unavailable, the market remains unranked and receives neither a score nor a rank; the decision turns on what evidence is still missing.