Chicot County

Chicot County comes in at a median home price of $93,173, down 5.8% year-over-year, with an affordability index that maxes out at 100. Those numbers tell you immediately where this market sits: entry prices are as low as you'll find anywhere in Arkansas, and they're getting lower. The dataset returns zeros across cash flow, cap rate, and cash-on-cash return, which means the modeled investment at a $18,635 down payment and a 6.85% rate does not pencil to a positive spread at current rent levels implied by the data. The cash flow score is 0 out of 100, appreciation scores 13, and the overall rank lands at the 23rd national percentile, 45th out of 74 Arkansas counties. That is a market sending a clear signal: cheap to buy, but not generating returns on its own at these financing costs.

The buyer this market theoretically attracts is a cash-flow operator, but the scores say even that profile struggles here. A cash buyer who eliminates the mortgage entirely might see a different picture since the purchase price is under $100,000, but a leveraged investor at 6.85% is not going to find spread. The appreciation score of 13 out of 100, combined with a price decline of 5.8% over the past year, rules out a buy-and-hold appreciation thesis. A value-add operator willing to work deeply distressed assets and exit quickly might pick through Chicot for individual deals, but the market-level data does not support a systematic deployment of capital here. The affordability ceiling is essentially already at its maximum, meaning there is no compression of that ratio left to work with as a tailwind.

No economic anchor data was provided for Chicot County, so employer base and job stability cannot be assessed from this dataset. What the population figure of 10,234 does tell you is that this is a very small, rural county. Thin population means thin rental demand by volume, limited tenant pools, and meaningful concentration risk if a single employer or agricultural cycle turns. Small-county rental markets in the rural South can carry persistent vacancy pressure that aggregate data does not capture at the individual-property level, and with a declining home price trend, the demand signal is not pointing in a favorable direction.

On carry costs, the tax and insurance picture is one of the few genuine tailwinds here. At a 0.62% state-average effective property tax rate, Arkansas is a low-tax state, and Chicot benefits from that baseline. Combined with a 0.48% insurance estimate, the blended monthly tax and insurance load comes to $85 on a $93,173 asset. That is materially lower than what investors underwrite in higher-cost or higher-tax states, and it helps narrow the cash flow gap on a leveraged deal. The honest caveat from the data itself applies: this is a state-average effective rate per Tax Foundation 2024 figures, and actual county and township rates in Chicot may differ, so pull the county assessor's numbers before finalizing any underwrite. Even so, the low-tax flag is a real line-item advantage relative to markets where tax alone consumes $300 to $500 per month.

The concentration and demographic risk in a county of 10,234 people is real and worth naming plainly. Rural, shrinking markets in the Arkansas Delta have historically faced population outmigration, limited commercial reinvestment, and dependence on agriculture and government employment. Declining home prices on an already-low base suggest that demand is not absorbing available supply. Regulatory risk is not flagged by the data, but the deeper structural concern is liquidity: exit options on a $93,000 asset in a county this small are narrow, and a distressed resale could mean accepting significant further discount.

Against its neighbors, Chicot is the cheapest entry point by a wide margin. Saint Francis County is close at $78,280 but scores equally at 50 overall. Johnson County at $178,695, Yell County at $160,989, and Little River County at $147,363 all carry meaningfully higher prices, while Clay County at $116,450 with a 53 overall score represents a somewhat better-scoring, modestly more expensive alternative. Clay County's slight score edge and higher price suggest incrementally better market conditions. An investor should choose Chicot over its neighbors only if they are operating all-cash, have identified a specific distressed asset with a clear value-add plan, and have underwritten exit liquidity carefully. For anyone deploying leverage, the neighboring counties with better overall scores and more populated markets offer a better risk-adjusted starting point even at higher acquisition costs.