Edwards County

Edwards County sits at the extreme affordable end of the Illinois price spectrum, with a median home price of $116,933 and 7.78% year-over-year appreciation. The affordability index scores a perfect 100, and the county ranks first nationally out of 1,000 counties in the dataset overall, second in Illinois out of 102. That's an unusual combination. What's conspicuously absent from the data, however, is any rent or cap rate figure: the cash-flow score is 0, estimated expenses are 0, and the cap rate is listed as 0. That tells you the tool does not have reliable rent data for Edwards County, and any underwriting you build here starts with a blank income line. You are working with a price point, an appreciation trend, and a cost structure, but you are not working with a verified rent-to-price ratio. Treat the 94 appreciation score as the primary quantitative signal, and treat the cash-flow story as something you will have to construct yourself through boots-on-the-ground rent comps.

The appreciation score of 94 and the 7.78% annual price gain make Edwards most legible as an appreciation play or a patient hold at a low entry cost. At $116,933, the purchase price is low enough that even modest rent would produce acceptable yields, but you cannot confirm that from this data set. An investor who needs verified cash-flow numbers before committing capital will find this county frustrating to underwrite remotely. The buyer this county suits most is someone already operating in southern Illinois who can pull local Section 8 payment standards or call property managers in Albion, verify that rents justify the buy, and then acquire at a price point where the 20% down payment is only $23,387. At that entry cost, even a thin spread between rent and carry costs is not catastrophic. A value-add operator willing to do the market legwork on rents could find genuine opportunity here. A purely remote cash-flow buyer relying on aggregated rent data should be cautious: the 0 cash-flow score signals the data simply isn't there, not necessarily that cash flow is negative.

The stability score of 50 is the number that warrants the most attention. Edwards County has a population of 6,182, which makes it one of the smallest markets in any serious investor's consideration set. Small-county real estate is not inherently bad, but thin population means thin tenant pools, thin buyer pools if you need to exit, and outsized sensitivity to any single employer reducing headcount or any demographic shift accelerating outmigration. No economic anchors are provided in the data, so there is nothing to say about specific employers or institutional demand drivers. What the 50 stability score does signal is that this is not a set-and-forget market. Vacancy in a county of 6,182 people hits differently than vacancy in a county of 200,000.

Property taxes deserve a prominent line on any underwrite for this county. The state-average effective rate in Illinois is 2.27%, flagged as very high, and at the $116,933 price point that translates to $2,654 annually in property tax alone. Combined with estimated insurance of $316 per year, the monthly tax-and-insurance burden is $248. That is before mortgage, maintenance, management, or vacancy. The note in the data is worth repeating: this is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024, and actual county and township rates in Edwards may differ materially, in either direction. At 2.27%, Illinois's property tax rate is high enough to compress net operating income significantly, and you should pull the actual Edwards County assessor data before finalizing any pro forma. For a property at this price, $248 per month in taxes and insurance before debt service is not a rounding error.

The primary risks here are concentration and liquidity. A county of 6,182 people offers a limited tenant pool, limited comps for appraisal, and a buyer pool that may be thin if you need to sell. The appreciation trend is real at 7.78%, but appreciation only converts to return when you can sell, refinance, or when rents track price gains. Without rent data, you cannot confirm the latter. There is no vacancy or demographic data provided here, so specific claims about either would be speculation, but the small-population context alone warrants a wider vacancy cushion in your underwrite than you would use in a metro market.

Comparing Edwards to its neighbors, Vermilion County is the only one in the dataset with a confirmed rent figure: $815 per month median rent against a $93,310 median home price, producing a gross rent-to-price ratio of 10.49%. That is a meaningful cash-flow signal that Edwards simply cannot match on paper right now, and Vermilion's overall score of 81 is not far behind Edwards's 83. If cash-flow verification matters to your process, Vermilion gives you an actual income number to stress-test. Massac and Marshall counties sit near the same price range as Edwards at $112,844 and $131,595 respectively, both scoring 81, offering no obvious advantage over Edwards on price but no obvious disadvantage either. Menard County at $198,736 and an 80 overall score costs significantly more with a lower rating, making it the hardest to justify in a relative comparison. Choose Edwards over its neighbors if you have verified local rent data that supports the income side, if you are prioritizing a low absolute entry price, or if you are specifically positioned to capture the 7.78% price appreciation trend. Choose Vermilion if you need a documented rent-to-price ratio as the foundation of your underwrite.