Perry County

Perry County, Illinois sits at a median home price of $111,312, which gives it a perfect affordability score of 100 and lands it at the 62nd percentile nationally across 1,000 counties. The raw price point is the lead story here. Home prices dipped 1.01% year-over-year, so you're not buying into momentum, you're buying into cheap. The data does not include a median rent figure or a gross rent-to-price ratio for Perry specifically, and the cap rate and cash-on-cash return fields come back as zero, meaning the model could not generate a reliable income estimate. That's a meaningful gap. An investor cannot responsibly underwrite this county on the numbers provided alone; local rent surveys and on-the-ground comps are required before any offer is made. With an appreciation score of 45 out of 100 and a stability score of 50, Perry sits in the middle of the road on both dimensions, neither a reliable equity compounder nor a distressed basket case.

Given the missing rent data, the clearest use case here is a value-add operator or a deep-value buyer who can independently verify rents. At $111,312, acquisition cost is low enough that even modest gross rents, say $850 to $1,000 per month, could pencil at yields worth considering, but that math needs to be stress-tested with real numbers, not extrapolated from the model. A pure appreciation play is hard to justify given the negative year-over-year price movement and a 45 appreciation score. A passive cash-flow buyer relying on automated underwriting will find this county's missing income data a dealbreaker without additional research. The affordability index of 100 signals the purchase price is accessible, but affordability alone does not create cash flow.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Perry County, so no claims about job concentration or demand drivers can be made here. What the population figure of roughly 21,000 does tell you is that this is a small, rural county. Thin population means thin tenant pools and potentially longer vacancy periods between turns. Liquidity on exit will also be limited compared to metro-adjacent markets, and buyer financing constraints in rural Illinois can slow disposition timelines. That isn't a disqualifier, but it's the operating context.

The tax and insurance picture deserves serious attention. Illinois carries a state-average effective property tax rate of 2.27%, flagged as very high, and that rate is high enough to demand its own line on every underwrite you build for this county. On a $111,312 purchase, that translates to approximately $2,527 per year in property taxes and $301 in insurance, combining to $236 per month in carry costs before you account for mortgage, maintenance, or management. At a 20% down payment of $22,262 and a 6.85% rate, your mortgage payment is not broken out in the provided data, but $236 per month in tax and insurance alone is a substantial drag on a low-price-point property, particularly when gross rents are unconfirmed. The note accompanying this data is worth repeating: this is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024, and actual county or township rates in Perry may differ materially. Pull the county assessor's effective rate before you close.

The neighboring county comparisons sharpen the picture. Bond County at a median of $154,738 and an overall score of 67 outscores Perry by four points at a price premium of roughly $43,000. If that premium buys you a deeper tenant pool or better employment base, Bond may offer better risk-adjusted positioning. Greene County at $106,001 and a score of 65 is actually cheaper than Perry and scores higher overall, which raises a direct question about why you'd choose Perry over Greene without additional data distinguishing them. DuPage County at $416,478 with a rent-to-price ratio of 5.88% and a score of 66 is a fundamentally different market, larger, more liquid, metro-connected, and not a true comparison for the same capital base. Monroe County at $327,942 and a 4.70% rent-to-price ratio scores 59, below Perry, and carries significantly higher acquisition cost. The practical takeaway is that Perry's closest competition on price, Greene County, scores higher, and any investor shortlisting Perry should run a side-by-side comparison of those two before committing capital.