Bourbon County

Bourbon County's numbers tell a straightforward story: this is a low-yield, low-appreciation market that doesn't do either job particularly well. The gross rent-to-price ratio sits at 4.75%, which translates to a cap rate of 3.09% once expenses are factored in. At a 6.85% financing rate on a 20% down, the modeled cash flow is negative $689 per month, producing a cash-on-cash return of -13.91%. Those aren't rounding errors, they're structural. Median home prices are $258,445 against median rents of $1,023, and prices actually declined 4.27% year-over-year, so neither the income side nor the appreciation side is compensating for the carry cost. The affordability index of 75 is the one bright spot, suggesting prices are still accessible relative to incomes, but affordability alone doesn't make a deal pencil.

The cash-flow buyer has little reason to stop here. A -$689 monthly hole requires either a significant price reduction from list, a value-add play that lifts rents materially above the $1,023 median, or an all-cash purchase that eliminates the mortgage drag. Even then, a 3.09% cap rate is thin for a county with a population of 20,228 and a 17th-percentile national ranking. The appreciation buyer fares no better: a -4.27% year-over-year price decline, a 29 appreciation score, and a market ranked 92nd out of 120 Kentucky counties don't suggest a repositioning thesis. The most defensible use case is a value-add operator who can buy well below the $258,445 median, renovate to push rents above the market average, and refinance or sell into a slightly improved basis. That's a workable strategy in almost any market, but it requires execution discipline that the base-case numbers here don't forgive.

No economic anchor data was provided for Bourbon County, so job-base concentration and employer-driven rental demand cannot be assessed from this dataset.

The $256 monthly tax-and-insurance figure is material but not punishing. Kentucky's state-average effective property tax rate of 0.86% sits in normal territory and doesn't require special treatment on the underwrite, though the honest caveat applies: that's a state-average estimate and actual Bourbon County or township rates may differ, so pulling the specific assessor data before closing is standard practice. Annual property tax is modeled at $2,223 and insurance at $853, totaling $3,076 per year. Combined with a $1,355 monthly mortgage and $358 in other estimated expenses, gross monthly carry is $1,969 against $1,023 in rent. The math is that simple and that stubborn.

The primary risk here is scale. A 20,228-person county means the rental pool is shallow. If a landlord owns multiple units and tenant turnover coincides, vacancy exposure is disproportionate to what you'd face in a larger market. There's no vacancy data in this dataset to quantify the rate, but small-county concentration risk is real and should inform how many doors an investor accumulates here before diversifying geographically.

Against the provided comparison counties, Bourbon is the most expensive by a wide margin. Whitley County's median is $148,725, Crittenden's is $119,603, Muhlenberg's is $132,697, and Estill's is $124,506, all with overall scores within two points of Bourbon's 47. Marshall County at $204,272 is the closest price comp and scores a 46. If the investment thesis is cash flow, every neighbor listed here offers a lower entry price with comparable market scores, which typically means a better rent-to-price ratio and a less negative or possibly positive cash-on-cash return at the same financing terms. The case for choosing Bourbon over a neighbor is narrow: it applies primarily to investors who have a specific local knowledge edge, an off-market deal at a significant discount to the $258,445 median, or a value-add asset that the broader market has mispriced. On a straight market-selection basis, the numbers favor the lower-priced neighboring counties.