Ashley County

Ashley County comes in at a median home price of $86,500, which is about as low an entry point as you'll find in Arkansas, let alone nationally. The affordability index sits at 100, the county ranks 1st in the state out of 74 counties and lands in the 96th percentile nationally across 1,000 counties. That positioning is almost entirely about price, and it shows up in the appreciation score of 80, which reflects meaningful room for upward reversion from a very compressed base. Year-over-year home price growth was 2.96%, modest in absolute terms but reasonable given the starting level. The dataset does not include a rent figure or gross rent multiplier for Ashley itself, so cap rate and cash-on-cash return cannot be calculated from the available data. Investors should run their own rent comps before underwriting this county on cash-flow assumptions.

The profile here suits a specific type of buyer: someone prioritizing entry price and long-run appreciation over immediate yield certainty. The $86,500 purchase price at a 20% down payment means $17,300 out of pocket, a figure that allows an investor to build a multi-property position in Ashley without the capital concentration risk that comes with higher-priced markets. Because no cash-flow score or rent data is reported for Ashley, it would be a mistake to assume strong monthly yield. The 80 appreciation score and top-1% national affordability ranking tell a story about value relative to replacement cost and regional peers, not about current rent-to-price ratios. A value-add operator buying distressed or underimproved single-family stock at sub-$90K and repositioning toward local rental demand could exploit the low entry price, but that thesis needs local rent comps to close the loop.

No economic anchor or employer data was provided for Ashley County, so no claims about the local job base or demand drivers are made here. What the data does show is a population of roughly 19,000, which places this squarely in small-market rural Arkansas territory. Stability scores at 50, directly in the middle of the range, which is consistent with a small, relatively undiversified economy where demand exists but is unlikely to surge. Investors should treat rental demand as steady-but-thin rather than growing, and size their acquisition pace accordingly.

The carry cost picture is a genuine tailwind. Arkansas's state-average effective property tax rate is 0.62%, flagged as low, and the insurance rate comes in at 0.48%. Combined, that produces an estimated $79 per month in tax and insurance on an $86,500 asset. That is materially lower than what an investor would pay in higher-tax states on comparable or pricier properties, and it meaningfully narrows the gap between gross rent and net operating income. As always, these figures reflect a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual county or township rates in Ashley may differ, so verify the specific millage before finalizing your underwrite.

The primary risks in Ashley are scale and concentration. At 19,000 residents, the renter pool is small, and vacancy in any individual unit represents a higher percentage of your portfolio cash flow than it would in a larger market. There is no reported vacancy rate in the dataset, but the mathematics of a small market require conservative vacancy assumptions. A single large employer exit or demographic outflow event in a county this size has outsized effects. The stability score of 50 reflects this dynamic.

Comparing Ashley to its neighbors sharpens the value case. Prairie County ($149,082), Grant County ($206,491), Scott County ($152,008), and Perry County ($182,366) all carry meaningfully higher median prices while posting overall scores of 71 to 74, all below Ashley's 77. The only comparable entry point in the neighbor set is Jefferson County at $84,271, with an overall score of 71. Jefferson does publish a rent figure ($885.69) and a rent-to-price ratio of 12.6%, which gives it an advantage for investors who need cash-flow clarity before committing. Ashley's lower overall score and lack of rent data suggest the market is less liquid and less analyzed, which cuts both ways: thinner data, but also less competition from institutional or semi-institutional buyers. An investor should choose Ashley over its neighbors when the thesis is maximum affordability and low carrying costs at the expense of yield certainty, and when the buyer is prepared to do independent rent research that the dataset does not yet supply.