Jo Daviess County

Jo Daviess County sits at a median home price of $254,886 with 5.1% year-over-year appreciation, an affordability index of 75, and an appreciation score of 86 out of 100. What's conspicuously absent from the data is any usable cap rate or cash-on-cash return, both of which register as zero, which tells you something important before you've read another sentence. This is not a market where the numbers pencil as a cash-flow play on day one. The investment thesis here runs entirely through the appreciation side of the ledger, where Jo Daviess ranks in the 86th percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties scored, placing it 113th overall and 50th among 102 Illinois counties.

For an appreciation buyer, that 86 appreciation score paired with 5.1% annual price growth at a sub-$255K median is an interesting combination. You're getting above-average price momentum at a price point that's accessible compared to Illinois suburbs closer to Chicago, which means your absolute dollar gain is modest but your percentage return on equity is real. The affordability index of 75 suggests prices have not yet run far ahead of local incomes, leaving room for continued upward movement rather than a market already stretched. A cash-flow buyer, by contrast, has no data to work with here and should not force the analysis. There are no rent figures in this dataset, and the cash-flow score of zero means this county does not screen for buy-and-hold income investors using conventional underwriting. A value-add operator might find opportunity if they can manufacture rent through rehabilitation, but the baseline numbers don't support that conclusion on their own.

The tax picture is the single most important underwriting line item in this dataset, and it goes the wrong direction. Illinois carries a state-average effective property tax rate of 2.27%, flagged here as very high, and at that rate a $254,886 purchase generates $5,786 in annual property taxes, or roughly $482 per month on taxes alone. Combined with an estimated $688 annually in insurance, you're looking at $540 per month in combined tax and insurance carry before debt service, maintenance, vacancy, or management. That $540 figure is not a rounding error in a spreadsheet. It is a number that can turn a marginally cash-flowing property into a monthly loss if rents don't clear the bar. This is a state-average estimate and the county and township actual rate may differ, but the directional risk is real and deserves its own line on every underwrite you build for this market.

The population of 21,942 is the other structural fact that shapes risk here. Jo Daviess is a small rural county in the far northwest corner of Illinois, and with that comes concentration risk. A market this size has limited tenant depth, thin transaction volume, and limited data on which to base rent assumptions. Appreciation in small rural counties can also be lumpy and mean-reverting in ways that larger metro-adjacent markets are not. The stability score of 50 reflects this directly. You're not buying a diversified urban economy. If the local demand drivers shift, there is less cushion.

Comparing Jo Daviess to the neighbors in the dataset clarifies where it fits. Williamson County at $152,606 median and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.084 and Madison County at $187,237 with a ratio of 0.070 are clearly better screening as cash-flow candidates, both on lower absolute price and on confirmed rent-to-price math. Kankakee County at $211,066 and a ratio of 0.074 also has actual rent data to underwrite. McHenry County at $349,331 median and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.073 is a larger, more liquid market with confirmed rental economics. Jo Daviess scores comparably to several of these on the overall scale (72 overall), but none of the neighbors with rent data score 86 on appreciation. That divergence is the clearest argument for choosing Jo Daviess: if your strategy is appreciation capture in an accessible Illinois price tier without metro-scale competition, this county stands out. If your strategy requires underwritable cash flow from day one, every named neighbor with rent data in this dataset gives you more to work with.