Lawrence County

Lawrence County, Arkansas sits at a median home price of $139,165, making it one of the more affordable entry points you'll find anywhere in the country. The affordability index scores a perfect 100, and the county ranks 273rd out of 1,000 nationally, landing in the 65th percentile overall. That's a respectable position for a small market. What's missing from this picture, however, is the rent and cap rate data: the cash flow score registers zero, cap rate is zero, and the monthly cash flow estimate comes back zero. That isn't necessarily a signal that the market produces no income; it reflects incomplete rental data for this county rather than a confirmed negative return. Any investor underwriting here needs to source local rent comparables independently before building a pro forma, because the tool simply can't run the cash flow math without them.

What the price point does tell you is clear: at $139,165 with a 20% down payment of roughly $27,833, you're in at a cost basis that a lot of secondary and tertiary markets can't touch. The appreciation score of 48 out of 100 is middling, and the year-over-year price change is essentially flat at negative 0.3%. This is not an appreciation play. Lawrence County with a population of 16,258 is a small, slow-moving rural market where the investment thesis, if one exists, is almost certainly built on yield rather than price growth. The stability score of 50 reinforces that: this is a market without notable tailwinds or headwinds, just a county sitting at its own pace. The investor who fits here is a yield-oriented buyer who can source off-market deals, has local property management lined up, and isn't counting on price appreciation to make the numbers work over a five-year hold.

On carry costs, Lawrence County actually offers a meaningful tailwind. The state-average effective property tax rate is 0.62%, which the Tax Foundation classifies as low, and the insurance rate is 0.48%, keeping combined annual tax and insurance at roughly $1,531 per year, or $128 per month. That's a genuine advantage for cash flow math: in markets where tax rates run 1.5% to 2.5%, the monthly carry drag alone can erase 150 to 300 dollars of net operating income. At $128 combined, Lawrence's carry costs give you more room to make the numbers work even at modest rent levels. Bear in mind this is a state-average estimate, and county or township rates may differ, so verify the actual millage before closing.

The specific risks here are worth naming plainly. A population of 16,258 means tenant pool depth is limited. If you're running a single-family portfolio and vacancy runs even one extra month, it hits harder than it would in a market with 10 times the renter population. Rural Arkansas markets like this one tend to have thin liquidity on the sales side as well, meaning exit options are narrower if you need to dispose of an asset quickly. Without economic anchor data in the provided inputs, there's no way to assess employer concentration or job base stability from this dataset, and inventing that picture would be misleading. An investor should spend real time on the ground understanding what drives local employment before committing capital.

Compared to the neighboring counties in the dataset, Lawrence sits at the low end on price but also at the low end on available data. Sebastian County comes in at a $198,950 median with a rent-to-price ratio of 6.25% and an overall score of 64, the same as Lawrence. Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, shows a $203,296 median with a rent-to-price ratio of 6.78% and the same overall score of 64. Faulkner County runs $250,392 with a 6.36% rent-to-price ratio. These three neighbors all carry confirmed rental data and demonstrate that Arkansas as a state produces reasonable gross yield in the 6.2% to 6.8% range at current price levels. Lawrence's entry price is 30% to 45% below those markets, which creates the possibility of similar or better gross yields if local rents hold up, but that's a conditional bet that needs rent comps to confirm. If an investor can verify that Lawrence rents support a gross yield in line with what Pulaski and Sebastian are showing, the lower entry price and lower carry costs make a credible case for choosing Lawrence over its pricier neighbors. If rent data comes back thin or soft, the neighboring markets, particularly Pulaski given its size and liquidity, offer a more defensible underwrite even at the higher purchase price.