Washington County

Washington County, Florida sits at a median home price of $226,021 with a cap rate that the model returns as zero and cash-flow score of zero, which tells you something important before you go further: the rent data needed to complete the income side of this underwrite is either unavailable or insufficient for the tool to generate a reliable yield figure. That alone warrants caution. What you can work with is the affordability index of 82, one of the higher readings in the dataset, and a home price that declined fractionally year-over-year, down 0.59%. The market is not appreciating meaningfully, scoring 47 out of 100 on that dimension, and sits at the 46th national percentile overall with an overall score of 58. This is a small, rural panhandle county with a population of 25,014, and the numbers reflect it: affordable entry price, limited liquidity, and a thin data footprint that makes underwriting harder, not easier.

Given the missing cash-flow figures and a near-flat appreciation score of 47, Washington County fits neither the pure cash-flow buyer nor the appreciation buyer cleanly. The affordability index of 82 and the $226,021 price point do leave room for a value-add operator who can manufacture yield through renovation and repositioning, particularly someone already operating in the northwest Florida panhandle who understands local rent ceilings. But you are working with a small rental pool in a county of 25,000 people, which constrains your exit options and your ability to scale. A buyer who needs to deploy significant capital or who relies on refinancing out equity will find this market limiting. The stability score of 50 is median, not reassuring, and without a functioning cap rate to anchor the analysis, any yield projection you build here is your own model, not something this data validates.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Washington County, so that dimension of the analysis cannot be addressed from the available inputs. What the demographics suggest indirectly is a market without a major institutional employer or university anchoring rental demand. A county of 25,014 with no named economic driver in a panhandle location typically leans on government employment, healthcare, and retail as its base, but drawing conclusions beyond the data would be fabricating context. If you are underwriting here seriously, your first call should be to the county economic development office to understand what, if anything, is backstopping renter household formation.

On carry costs, the combined monthly tax and insurance estimate comes to $294, built from a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.89% and an insurance rate of 0.67%. The 0.89% tax rate is flagged as normal, so it is not a headwind relative to Florida peers, though the caveat matters: this is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and your actual county or township rate may differ, sometimes materially in rural Florida counties. The insurance figure of $1,514 annually deserves attention given Florida's coastal and weather exposure, even in a panhandle inland county. That $294 monthly carry is a real line on your pro forma before you add vacancy, management, maintenance, and debt service. At a $226,021 purchase price with 20% down and a 6.85% rate, your principal and interest alone is approximately $1,189 per month on the financed $180,817. Add $294 in tax and insurance and you are at roughly $1,483 before anything else. Know your rent ceiling before you close.

The primary risk in Washington County is concentration, specifically the concentration of risk that comes with small-market illiquidity. A population of 25,014 means a thin buyer pool when you want to exit, limited comparable sales to support appraisals, and fewer property managers competing for your business. If the local economy softens or a major employer contracts, the rental market has less diversification to absorb the shock. There is no vacancy or crime data in the provided dataset to cite, but the structural risk of a market this small is real and belongs on your checklist regardless of what the headline affordability number looks like.

Against its neighbors, Washington County's $226,021 median is the second-lowest in the comparison set, trailing only Putnam County at $210,747. Putnam carries a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0779, the highest of the group and meaningfully above what you can project for Washington given the absent yield data here. If cash flow is your mandate, Putnam is the more evidenced choice at a lower entry price with a demonstrated rent-to-price ratio. Escambia at $273,928 and a 0.0699 rent-to-price ratio offers more market depth and the economic diversification of Pensacola. Santa Rosa at $343,674 is the appreciation play with the highest absolute rent at $1,980 but at a price premium that compresses yield. Washington makes sense over these neighbors only if you have specific local knowledge of a submarket or asset type not captured in the county-level data, or if you are a panhandle-based operator who can manage here at lower cost than an outside investor. On the numbers provided alone, Putnam or Escambia would be the more defensible underwrite for most investor profiles.