Wilson County

Wilson County sits at a median home price of $106,935, making it one of the more affordable entry points in Kansas. The affordability index scores a perfect 100, and at roughly $107K the purchase price is low enough that even modest rents can produce workable yields in absolute dollar terms. That said, the data as structured returns a cap rate and cash-on-cash return of zero, which reflects missing rent data rather than a confirmed zero-yield market, so any underwrite here requires the investor to source local rent comps independently before committing. What the data does confirm is that prices have moved against buyers over the trailing year, down 3.48%, which cuts both ways: it signals weak near-term appreciation but also opens the door for further price negotiation. The county ranks 426th out of 1,000 nationally (46th percentile) and 79th out of 105 Kansas counties, placing it in the bottom quarter of the state on a combined scoring basis.

The affordability score of 100 and the $106,935 median price point this squarely at the cash-flow buyer or value-add operator rather than the appreciation play. An investor chasing price growth has no support from the data: the appreciation score is 33 out of 100 and the year-over-year price decline of 3.48% reinforces that this is not a market where you buy and wait for equity to do the work. The play here, if there is one, is buying well below replacement cost, keeping financing lean, and extracting yield from low acquisition basis. At $106,935 with 20% down, the equity check is roughly $21,387, which is a low barrier to entry. Whether that translates to actual cash flow depends entirely on achievable rents, which the data does not supply. A value-add operator willing to do the rent comp work and target distressed or underpriced assets could find the low price floor useful, but the stability score of 50 and a small population of 8,667 mean the margin for error on vacancy is thin.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Wilson County, so no claims can be made about the local employment base or the institutional drivers of rental demand. In a county of 8,667 people, that absence is itself a signal worth sitting with: small, rural Kansas counties without identifiable economic anchors often have limited tenant pools and longer re-leasing timelines. Investors should treat demand-side assumptions as a research task, not a given.

On carry costs, the combined monthly tax and insurance figure is $177, based on a state-average effective property tax rate of 1.41% and an insurance rate of 0.58% applied to the $106,935 purchase price. The 1.41% tax rate carries a "normal" flag, meaning it is neither a tailwind nor a particular burden relative to Kansas norms, but as with any state-average estimate, actual county and township rates may differ and should be verified at the assessor level before closing. At a $106,935 price point, $177 per month in tax and insurance is a meaningful slice of whatever gross rent this market supports, and it needs to appear explicitly on the pro forma rather than getting absorbed into a generic expense ratio.

The primary risks here are concentration and demographic. A population of 8,667 creates a narrow tenant pool. Any single employer closure, population outflow, or shift in local demographics hits occupancy faster and harder than it would in a larger metro. The 3.48% price decline over the past year is consistent with the kind of slow demand erosion that affects small rural counties across the Great Plains. No vacancy or crime data were provided, but the combination of below-median state ranking, negative price momentum, and a low population base warrants conservative vacancy assumptions in any underwrite.

Compared to the neighbors in the dataset, Wilson County's $106,935 median is the lowest of the group. Bourbon County at $125,434 and Sumner County at $140,857 are the nearest comps by price, and both carry overall scores within a point or two of Wilson (59 and 58, respectively), suggesting similar risk-return profiles at modestly higher entry costs. Ford County at $204,156 and Leavenworth County at $334,681 operate in a different price tier entirely. Johnson County at $438,419 with a gross rent-to-price ratio of 4.57% is a different asset class. Leavenworth offers a 4.06% rent-to-price ratio at a much higher price point, which gives some context: even if Wilson can achieve competitive yield ratios, the thinner absolute rent dollars mean any fixed cost overrun hits returns proportionally harder. Choose Wilson over its neighbors if your capital is constrained below $125K, you have local market knowledge to source rents and manage vacancy, and you are structuring a low-leverage or cash purchase to sidestep the mortgage payment gap the data cannot currently quantify.