I pulled Zillow's Home Value Index (ZHVI) and Observed Rent Index (ZORI) for every metro in their top 100 and computed gross yield = (median rent x 12) / median home value. Same formula for every market, so it's apples-to-apples. 97 of the 100 have both series. Top 10:

1. Jackson, MS - $215,622 value / $1,489 rent - 8.29%

2. El Paso, TX - $233,297 / $1,528 - 7.86%

3. Pittsburgh, PA - $235,539 / $1,523 - 7.76%

4. Chicago, IL - $359,888 / $2,275 - 7.59%

5. Lakeland, FL - $298,822 / $1,848 - 7.42%

6. Toledo, OH - $206,185 / $1,276 - 7.42%

7. New Orleans, LA - $264,891 / $1,617 - 7.33%

8. Columbia, SC - $257,718 / $1,555 - 7.24%

9. Syracuse, NY - $271,597 / $1,614 - 7.13%

10. Augusta, GA - $254,362 / $1,506 - 7.11%

Three things that stood out to me:

Chicago at 7.59% is the real outlier. It's the only top-5-by-population metro anywhere near the top of this list - every other high-yield market here is small or mid-size. If you want yield without giving up liquidity, depth of tenant pool, and exit options, it's basically the only large market still offering it.

Rust Belt and Deep South dominate, which is the usual story, but the spread has widened enough that financing costs eat the entire return in the bottom half of the list.

The bottom is brutal for cash flow. San Jose 2.83%, Salt Lake City 3.46%, San Francisco 3.47%, Los Angeles 3.63%, Seattle 3.65%. At those yields you are buying appreciation and nothing else.

Important caveats so nobody misreads this: this is GROSS yield. It does not subtract taxes, insurance, vacancy, capex or management, and those vary enormously by state - a 7% gross in a high-tax, high-insurance market can net worse than a 6% gross in a cheap one (Florida insurance being the obvious 2026 example). Treat it as a screen for where to look, not a buy signal. It's also metro-level medians, so submarket variation inside any of these is far bigger than the gap between adjacent rows.

Happy to run cuts for anyone - ask for a state or a specific metro in the comments and I'll post its numbers.

Disclosure: the full ranking below is my own project and the complete dataset there is a paid download, so treat this paragraph as self-promotion and ignore it if you like - everything above is the actual content of the post and needs no click.

I put the full ranking of all 97 metros plus the CSV (keyed on Zillow RegionID so it joins onto other Zillow series, includes the 5-year rent trend) together here in case it's useful: https://smeltworks.com/atlas/