Williamson County

Williamson County posts a rent-to-price ratio of 7.52%, which places it squarely in cash-flow territory on paper, but the full underwrite tells a more complicated story. At a $157,730 purchase price with 20% down, the model produces a cap rate of 4.88% and a cash-on-cash return of negative 6.12%, with estimated monthly cash flow of negative $185. The gap between that promising gross yield and the actual bottom line comes down primarily to financing cost at 6.85% and carry costs that eat the spread. Appreciation is essentially flat, with home prices up just 0.09% year-over-year, so this is not a market where you wait out thin cash flow expecting equity gains to make up the difference. The overall score of 67 out of 100, landing at the 73rd national percentile across 1,000 counties, reflects a market that has real yield potential but demands careful structuring to get into positive territory.

The profile here fits two specific buyer types, with caveats. A cash-flow buyer who can reduce leverage, whether through a larger down payment, an all-cash purchase, or a below-ask acquisition, has a genuine path to positive returns: the rent-to-price ratio at 7.52% gives you margin to work with, and the affordability index of 96 means the entry price is accessible. The cash flow score of 75 supports this, ranking it as one of the better cash-flow setups in the data set. An appreciation buyer has almost nothing to work with here, given that 0.09% price growth, and the appreciation score of 51 confirms the market is effectively flat. A value-add operator, someone who can buy below median, force equity through improvements, and refinance into a better debt structure, is probably the most natural fit: the low median price creates room to acquire at a discount, and the affordability of the market supports tenant demand at the $988 median rent level.

No economic anchor data was provided for Williamson County, so employer-level commentary on job stability or rental demand drivers is not possible from the available inputs. What the data does show is a population of 67,120, a small-to-mid-sized county where tenant demand will be locally concentrated and less diversified than in a metro market. The stability score of 50 reflects that, a coin-flip on whether the rental market holds through a local economic disruption.

The carry cost picture in Williamson is the single most important underwriting detail in this dataset. Illinois carries a state-average effective property tax rate of 2.27%, flagged here as very high, and that is not an abstraction. On this $157,730 asset, that rate produces $3,580 in annual property taxes, or $298 per month. Combined with $426 annually in insurance, the monthly tax-and-insurance line comes to $334, representing the largest single expense component after the mortgage. At a $988 monthly rent, those two items alone consume 34% of gross income before you account for the $827 mortgage payment or any maintenance, vacancy, or management costs. That 2.27% figure is a state-average estimate and actual county and township rates in Williamson may differ, but any investor underwriting this market needs to pull the actual assessed rate for the specific parcel, because the difference between 2.27% and, say, 2.60% is not trivial at this rent level. Illinois property taxes deserve their own line on your model, not a footnote.

The primary risk in Williamson is concentration. A 67,000-person county with flat price appreciation and a stability score of 50 is vulnerable to any single employer contraction or population outflow. There is no diversified metro economy visible in the data to cushion a demand shock. Regulatory risk specific to Williamson is not captured in the provided data, but Illinois broadly carries landlord-unfriendly statutes and a property tax structure that has historically made the state difficult for buy-and-hold investors, and the 2.27% rate is direct evidence of that structural headwind.

Compared to its neighbors, Williamson's 7.52% rent-to-price ratio is the highest in the group. Adams County comes in at 6.74%, Kane County at 6.64%, and DuPage County at 5.88%, all materially lower. DuPage and Kane both carry entry prices above $360,000, requiring capital deployment roughly 2.3 to 2.6 times larger for a single asset at lower gross yields. Greene County has a lower median price at $106,001 but no rent data is provided. Bond County is similarly priced to Williamson at $154,738 but again lacks rent data for comparison. On overall score, Williamson ties Bond County at 67, trails Adams and Kane at 68, and edges DuPage at 66. The case for choosing Williamson over Adams or Kane is straightforward: lower entry price, higher gross yield, and similar overall scores. The case against it relative to those markets is equally straightforward: Illinois tax exposure is real regardless of which county you pick, and Williamson's smaller economic base adds concentration risk that a larger county may not carry to the same degree.