About the data
Where the numbers come from
Zillow Research
ZHVI home values, ZORI rents, ZHVF forecast. Free public CSVs.
Census ACS 5-Year
Demographics, income, housing, commute, education attainment.
Census Population Estimates
Annual components of population change including net migration.
BLS QCEW
Quarterly employment and wages by county. Open CSV API, no key.
IRS SOI Migration
County-to-county household and income flows from tax returns.
County Health Rankings
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation compilation with complete county coverage. Carries CDC mortality, SEDA school performance and EPA air quality in one file.
FEMA National Risk Index
Natural hazard risk, expected annual loss, community resilience.
EPA Air Quality System
Annual AQI summaries by county.
Census Building Permits Survey
New residential permits — a leading indicator of supply.
Tax Foundation (curated)
State income and sales tax rates, hand-maintained in src/data/state-tax.ts.
Derived
Computed by SettleInUS from other metrics.
How "live here" is scored
Weights sum to 100- School quality scoreSchools & education16%
- Homicide rateSafety12%
- Home price to incomeAffordability & returns10%
- Natural hazard riskEnvironment & risk8%
- Life expectancyCommunity & people8%
- Median household incomeAffordability & returns8%
- Total state & local tax burdenTaxes7%
- Fine particulate pollutionEnvironment & risk6%
- Average commuteJobs & economy6%
- Severe housing problemsAffordability & returns6%
- Unemployment rateJobs & economy5%
- Children in povertyCommunity & people4%
- Primary care doctors per 100,000Community & people4%
How "invest" is scored
Weights sum to 100- Estimated cap rateAffordability & returns15%
- Home value growth (5 yr annualized)Housing market12%
- Net domestic migration per 1,000Population & migration10%
- Forecast price change (next 12 mo)Housing market8%
- Gross rental yieldAffordability & returns8%
- Job growth (1 yr)Jobs & economy8%
- Job growth (5 yr annualized)Jobs & economy8%
- Rent change (1 yr)Housing market7%
- Population growth (5 yr annualized)Population & migration6%
- Home price to incomeAffordability & returns5%
- Effective property tax rateTaxes5%
- Housing vacancy rateHousing market4%
- Natural hazard riskEnvironment & risk4%
Method and limits
Scores are relative. Each metric is converted to a percentile against comparable places — counties against counties, metros against metros — then combined using the weights above. A score of 80 means the place beats 80% of its peers on the weighted blend, not that it is 80% good.
Missing data is dropped, not zeroed. Where a source has no figure for a place, that metric's weight is removed and the rest renormalised. Every comparison card shows the share of inputs that were actually available.
Crime is measured by mortality. FBI violent and property crime counts are reported voluntarily by individual police agencies, so county coverage is incomplete and the gaps are not random. Homicide, firearm and injury death rates come from complete death-certificate records instead.
Returns are estimates. Cap rate and monthly cost use explicit, conservative assumptions — vacancy, management, maintenance, insurance and the current 30-year fixed rate — applied uniformly. They are for comparing places, not for underwriting a specific property.
Geography is coarse. A county can contain very different neighbourhoods. Use it to shortlist, then look at ZIP level and visit.