Why is a market’s score missing or showing as neutral?

Coverage varies by data source and geography level — economic data is strongest at the county level, so some ZIPs inherit those dimensions from their parent metro.

On the map, a geography we cannot score is drawn as a diagonal hatch rather than given a colour from the scale. That is deliberate: a withheld score is not a low score, and colouring it would tell you something we do not know. The legend shows the same hatch so you can match what you are seeing.

Affordability is the clearest example, because it needs local income data. That exists for metros, counties and ZIPs, but not for cities — so every city would otherwise show the same filled-in reading. Rather than present that as a real measurement, we mark Affordability as unavailable on city markets, and Compare leaves it out instead of drawing a flat line across the cities you are comparing.

A blank score is not a low score, and it is not a bug. It means we could not measure enough of the market to stand behind a number — most often because the federal sources that supply affordability, economic strength and rental yield publish nothing for that geography. Some markets that previously showed a score now show none, because those scores were mostly filler and should not have been published.

If a market you expected is missing, it usually means the upstream source has not published recent data for it yet.