A high gross yield can mean two different things. The rent is strong for the price, or the price has been falling and the rent hasn't followed it down. On a yield map the two look the same, and the second kind tends to rank first.
We checked Zillow's September 2026 figures. Among the 3% of US ZIP codes with the highest yields, typically above 12% on a home worth about $98,000, 30% are worth less than they were five years ago. Among all other ZIP codes, 6.5% are.
Pick a goal
Above the map there are now three buttons: Cash flow, Balanced and Growth. Pick one and every state, county and ZIP code is colored by a score from 0 to 100 for that goal, from light gold to deep bronze. The list beside the map ranks the best areas in view, and the leaderboard ranks the whole country.
A score reads as a share of the country. A ZIP code that scores 90 for cash flow does better than 90% of US ZIP codes for cash flow. States are compared with states, counties with counties, ZIP codes with ZIP codes.
What goes into the score
Each area is measured five ways, all from Zillow's own history:
- gross yield, a year of rent as a percent of the home value
- the change in home value over 5 years and over 10 years
- the change in rent over 3 years
- the worst fall in home value since 2000, peak to low
Cash flow weighs yield most, then checks that rents and values are holding up. Growth weighs the 5- and 10-year gains, rising rents, and how far the area fell in past downturns. Balanced sits in between. Click any area and the panel shows each measure, its value and the share of the country it beats, so you can see why it scored the way it did.
The score describes the record so far. It is not a forecast.
Yield traps
An area is flagged as a yield trap when its yield is in the top 20% of the country but its home values fell over the past five years, while the typical US home rose about 18%. There are 200 such ZIP codes and 28 such counties on the map today. They get a dashed outline on the map and a ⚠ in every list, and the panel explains what happened. A yield trap never scores in the upper half for any goal.
Switch back to the Yield button and the traps are still marked, so you can see which high yields come from falling prices.
Current through September 2026
The map now runs on Zillow's September 2026 home values and rents. We left out 13 resort ZIP codes, in the Hamptons and in Florida resort towns, where the typical rent is a vacation rental of $5,000 or more a month. One of them showed a 37% yield on a $3.4 million home.
Gross yield is before expenses and financing, and every score here is a starting filter. Pull comps on a specific address to underwrite a deal.