Costilla County

Costilla County sits at a median home price of $184,317, which makes it one of the more affordable entry points in Colorado, reflected in its affordability score of 91 out of 100. The problem is that affordability alone does not make a rental market. The cash flow score is 0, the cap rate is 0, and the cash-on-cash return is 0, which means the rental income data either does not exist or does not pencil at current prices. Homes are also declining in value, down 7.75% year-over-year, so the appreciation story is equally thin, scoring just 10 out of 100. The overall score of 46 puts Costilla in the 15th percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties ranked, and 30th out of 62 Colorado counties. This is not a market generating returns from either direction right now.

The missing rent and income data is itself a signal. With a population of 3,534, Costilla is a micro-rural county where the rental market is shallow enough that reliable rent comparables are difficult to establish. An investor who needs to underwrite to a specific rent figure before committing capital will find that hard to do here with confidence. The stability score of 50 is middling, not disqualifying, but combined with falling prices and no demonstrated rental yield, there is no clear thesis for either a cash-flow buyer or an appreciation buyer at this moment. A value-add operator with deep local knowledge and the ability to manufacture a use case, whether short-term rentals, seasonal housing, or land plays, might find angles that the conventional analysis misses, but that requires a ground-level understanding of the local market that raw county data cannot provide.

No economic anchor data was provided for Costilla, so employer base and job stability cannot be assessed from the available figures. What the population number does say is that at 3,534 residents, the tenant pool is extremely limited. A single vacancy in a small portfolio can meaningfully distort cash flow in a county this size, and demand replenishment, if a tenant leaves, depends on a very thin local labor market. That concentration risk is structural, not cyclical.

On carry costs, Costilla offers a genuine tailwind. The state-average effective property tax rate is 0.51%, flagged as low, and combined with an insurance rate of 0.33%, the monthly tax and insurance burden on a $184,317 purchase comes to approximately $129 per month. That is materially lower than what investors face in higher-price, higher-tax Colorado counties, and it gives the operating cost stack some room. The caveat here, as the data source notes, is that this is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual county or township rates in Costilla may differ, so verify the specific mill levy before closing. Still, if rental income were to materialize, the low carry cost would be a meaningful contributor to net operating income.

The principal risk here is market depth. A 3,534-person county with a cash flow score of 0, no published median rent, and a home price declining at 7.75% annually presents a concentration problem that goes beyond any single underwriting assumption. There is no rent data to stress-test, no demonstrated absorption rate, and a price trend moving in the wrong direction. Regulatory risk and vacancy statistics are not available from the provided data, but the demographic reality of a micro-rural, depopulation-risk county in southern Colorado is a risk category on its own.

Compared to its neighbors, Costilla's $184,317 median is dramatically lower than Gunnison at $692,295, Park at $512,898, Gilpin at $549,868, and Clear Creek at $552,757. Las Animas at $236,798 is the closest comparable in price. Park County shows a rent-to-price ratio of 0.056 and Clear Creek shows 0.048, both of which are functional rental markets with actual yield data. Those counties score 47 and 44 overall respectively, close to Costilla's 46, but they have demonstrated rental demand to underwrite against. An investor should choose Costilla over its neighbors only if they have a specific, non-conventional thesis, perhaps raw land, a seller-financed acquisition, or a short-term rental play tied to proximity to the San Luis Valley or Great Sand Dunes, and even then the illiquidity of a 3,534-person county needs to be priced into the deal from the start.