Scott County

Scott County, Illinois checks one box decisively: affordability. At a median home price of $89,662, the affordability index hits 100, the ceiling of the scale, and that single fact defines everything else about this market. The problem is that the investment estimate returns zeroes across the board for cap rate, cash-on-cash return, estimated cash flow, and monthly mortgage, which signals that the underlying rent data needed to complete those calculations is absent. Without a verified rent figure, no honest underwrite can be constructed from this data alone. What is visible is the price-to-rent and yield picture implied by those missing numbers: a county this cheap can theoretically pencil if rents are even modest, but the absence of that anchor figure is itself a warning that rental market activity here may be thin enough that reliable rent comparables are hard to pin down. Appreciation is a non-starter on current trajectory, with home prices down 4.68% year-over-year and an appreciation score of just 27 out of 100. This is not a market you enter expecting price gains.

The investor profile this market could theoretically suit is a deep cash-flow buyer willing to operate in a very small, illiquid pond. At $89,662 a door, even a modest gross rent of $700 to $800 per month would produce a gross rent multiplier in the 9 to 10 range, which is the kind of math that cash-flow buyers chase. But the operative word is "theoretically." Scott County's population of 4,899 puts it squarely in micro-rural territory, which compresses the tenant pool, limits exit options, and makes vacancy events more damaging than in a larger market. The overall score of 56 and a cash-flow score of 0 (not just low, but zero) suggest the tool could not validate a cash-flow thesis from available data. A value-add operator might find cheap acquisition prices appealing, but value-add only works if you can force rents up or flip to another buyer, and both strategies require depth of market that a sub-5,000-population county is unlikely to provide.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Scott County, so no claims can be made about job base, income stability, or institutional demand drivers. That absence is itself meaningful context: markets with identifiable anchor employers, hospital systems, universities, or major manufacturers are typically the ones where that data is readily surfaced. The lack of it here is consistent with a county whose economic activity is dispersed across agriculture and small local services rather than concentrated in institutions that generate durable rental demand.

The carry cost picture on taxes deserves serious attention. Illinois carries a state-average effective property tax rate of 2.27%, flagged here as very high, and that translates to $2,035 in annual property taxes on an $89,662 asset, or roughly $170 per month. Add $242 in estimated annual insurance ($20 per month) and the combined tax-and-insurance load runs $190 per month before a single dollar of mortgage, maintenance, or vacancy reserve. On a property at this price point, $190 per month in fixed carry costs is a significant percentage of any realistic rent figure. At a $750 gross rent, taxes and insurance alone consume 25% of top-line revenue before debt service, management, or CapEx. This rate deserves its own line on your underwrite, and the caveat applies: this is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and the actual county or township rate in Scott County may differ, potentially in either direction.

The concentration risk here is structural. A county of 4,899 people with declining home prices and no identifiable economic anchors carries real demographic fragility. Population at this scale can shift meaningfully from a single employer closing, a school consolidation, or continued outmigration common in rural Illinois counties. The year-over-year price decline of 4.68% may reflect exactly that pressure. No vacancy or crime statistics are available in this data set, but a shrinking buyer and renter pool is a reasonable inference from the price trend and population size.

Scott's neighbors expose the trade-offs clearly. Greene County, at $106,001 median with an overall score of 65, offers a comparable entry price point but scores nine points higher overall, making it the more defensible choice at similar affordability. Calhoun County scores 61 at $184,783, and Schuyler County scores 49 at $140,751. Monroe County at $327,942 and DuPage County at $416,478 are different markets entirely: DuPage's rent-to-price ratio of 0.059 on a $416,478 median and overall score of 66 reflects a functioning rental market with liquidity, and Monroe's 0.047 rent-to-price on a $327,942 median still scores 59. The message from the neighbor comparison is straightforward: if your priority is yield and affordability, Greene County delivers a better-validated investment thesis at a similar price tier. If you want a functioning rental market with real exit options, DuPage costs significantly more but gives you the infrastructure to support it. Scott County at its current price and with its current data gaps sits in a difficult middle ground: cheap enough to tempt, but too illiquid and too data-sparse to underwrite with confidence.