Evangeline Parish

Evangeline Parish sits at a median home price of $106,609, making it one of the more affordable entry points in Louisiana and nationally. The affordability index scores a perfect 100, and the parish ranks 45th out of 64 Louisiana parishes on overall score, placing it in the lower tier of the state. Home prices moved down 8% year-over-year, which is a meaningful decline and cuts both ways: buyers can acquire at depressed prices, but that same trajectory signals weak or absent appreciation. The cash flow score registers at zero and the appreciation score at 9 out of 100, which places this market firmly at the low end of both dimensions simultaneously. That combination, cheap to buy but generating no modeled cash flow and losing value, is the defining tension an investor has to resolve before committing capital here.

The zero cash flow score warrants a direct read: at a $106,609 purchase price with a 6.85% rate on an 80% loan, the modeled cap rate and cash-on-cash return both come out at zero in this dataset, meaning the numbers as currently structured do not support a conventional buy-and-hold with financing. That does not necessarily mean the parish is uninvestable, but it does mean an investor needs a below-market acquisition, a value-add angle that forces rents up, or an all-cash approach to make the math work. A cash-flow buyer hunting for a turnkey, levered return should not expect this market to deliver one at list prices. An appreciation buyer is equally poorly served given the 8% YoY price decline and a 9/100 appreciation score. The investor most likely to find something useful here is a value-add operator willing to buy distressed assets below the $106,609 median, improve them, and either hold for stabilized rent or flip into a thin local buyer pool.

There is no economic anchors data provided for Evangeline Parish, so specific employers and demand drivers cannot be assessed here. The parish's population of 32,335 is small, and that scale alone concentrates risk. A small renter pool means vacancies take longer to fill and a single large employer departure or population outflow has an outsized effect on rental demand. The stability score of 50 out of 100 is middling and consistent with a market that is neither catastrophically distressed nor reliably durable.

On carry costs, the tax and insurance picture is one of the few genuine tailwinds. Louisiana's state-average effective property tax rate of 0.55% carries a "low" flag, and at a $106,609 purchase price that translates to $586 annually in property tax. Insurance comes to $704 annually at a 0.66% rate, producing a combined monthly tax-and-insurance figure of $108. That is a real underwriting benefit: low carry costs partially offset compressed rents and give a thin cash-flow deal slightly more room to breathe. The caveat, as always, is that the 0.55% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual Evangeline Parish rates may differ. Run the specific millage rates before finalizing any underwrite.

The neighbor comparison sharpens the picture. Jackson Parish, Avoyelles Parish, and East Feliciana Parish all score 54 overall versus Evangeline's 49, and Avoyelles and Jackson are priced comparably at $125,762 and $111,674 respectively. An investor choosing between Evangeline and those two alternatives is paying roughly the same entry price but picking up five points of overall score. East Feliciana Parish scores 54 as well but prices at $210,695, a different capital commitment. Saint Landry Parish sits just above Evangeline in price at $126,787 with a lower overall score of 45, making it the one neighbor that looks worse. The practical takeaway: if you are drawn to this price tier in rural south-central Louisiana, Avoyelles or Jackson offer modestly better overall scores for comparable money, and either should be stress-tested alongside Evangeline before capital is committed. Evangeline makes sense over those neighbors only if a specific off-market deal or local knowledge gives you a cost basis meaningfully below the median.