Saint Francis County

Saint Francis County comes in at a median home price of $83,702, which is among the lowest entry points you'll find anywhere in Arkansas or nationally. The affordability index hits 100, the highest possible score in this dataset, and the county ranks 426th out of 1,000 nationally, landing at the 46th percentile overall. What's missing from the data is telling: cap rate, cash-on-cash return, estimated cash flow, monthly mortgage, and estimated expenses all come back as zero, meaning the model could not produce a reliable rent estimate to underwrite against. Without a verifiable rent figure, the price-to-rent ratio and cash flow projections simply can't be calculated with confidence. Investors should treat this as a data gap requiring independent rent comparables before committing capital, not as a signal that cash flow doesn't exist. What the data does confirm is that home prices fell 3.47% year over year, which cuts both ways: it suppresses appreciation prospects and may create negotiating room on acquisition price.

The cash flow score of 0 and appreciation score of 33 position Saint Francis County firmly outside the typical buy-and-hold playbook for either cash flow or appreciation buyers. The appreciation score of 33 out of 100 reflects the declining price trend, a population of 23,138 that offers a limited demand base, and a stability score of 50, which signals neither a deteriorating market nor one with durable growth momentum. The investor this market could suit is a deep-value or value-add operator willing to do primary research on rents, willing to accept a small, thin market with limited exit liquidity, and underwriting acquisition cost so low that even modest rents generate acceptable yields. At $83,702 purchase price with a 20% down payment of $16,740, the capital at risk is unusually low. The question is whether market rents exist to service the debt and expenses, and that answer isn't in this dataset.

The taxInsurance data provides one concrete tailwind. Arkansas's state-average effective property tax rate for this county is estimated at 0.62%, which the dataset flags as low. On an $83,702 home that works out to $519 annually in property tax and $402 in insurance, combining for $77 per month in tax and insurance carry. That's a meaningful underwriting advantage: in higher-tax states the same asset might carry $300 to $500 per month in tax and insurance alone before a dollar of mortgage, maintenance, or vacancy is counted. The caveat stated in the data is worth repeating: 0.62% is a state-average effective rate sourced from the Tax Foundation's 2024 data, and actual county or township rates in Saint Francis County may differ. Pull the county assessor's records before finalizing any proforma.

No economic anchor data was provided for Saint Francis County, so employer base and job-market stability cannot be assessed from this dataset. That absence is itself a flag for investors: in a county of 23,138 people without documented institutional employers or economic drivers in the data, rental demand is harder to stress-test. Concentrated or thin local economies can sustain vacancies longer than larger markets, and lease-up risk on acquired properties may be higher. Demographic and regulatory risk data are similarly absent, so no specific claims can be made on those dimensions. What can be said is that a population under 25,000 with a declining home price trend warrants conservative vacancy assumptions in any proforma you build from outside rental data.

The neighboring counties in this dataset underscore how isolated Saint Francis County's profile is. Washington County prices out at $341,742 with a rent-to-price ratio of 0.055 and an overall score of 58, essentially the same overall score as Saint Francis at a price point four times higher. Garland County shows a rent-to-price ratio of 0.069 at a median price of $240,977, which is a meaningfully better gross yield signal than anything Saint Francis's data can confirm. Madison County ($268,281) and Conway County ($165,385) both score 57 to 58 overall at much higher price points. Izard County edges Saint Francis out with an overall score of 59 at $169,772. On pure affordability and entry cost, Saint Francis stands alone in this peer group. But every neighbor with available rent data shows higher rent-to-price ratios, which suggests that lower price does not automatically translate to better yield in this market. Choose Saint Francis over a neighbor only if on-the-ground rent research confirms yields that the dataset cannot, if your strategy is genuinely speculative or opportunistic at the low end, or if the $16,740 entry cost fits a capital-constrained portfolio where even thin returns on a low-basis asset are acceptable.