Madison Parish

Madison Parish sits at the extreme low end of the price spectrum, with a median home price of $70,847, a 100 affordability score, and a national percentile rank of 13 out of 1,000 counties. That affordability score is the single standout number here. Everything else is sobering: the overall score is 45, cash flow and appreciation scores both register zero, and home prices declined 0.16% year-over-year. The data does not support an argument that this is a quietly overlooked market on the verge of a turn. At a population of 10,028 and with no cap rate or rent estimate available in the underlying data, the investment math simply cannot be completed from what's provided, which is itself a signal worth respecting.

The buyer this market theoretically suits is the deep-value, cash-flow-oriented operator who can source rent data locally, underwrite conservatively, and manage property in a thin, illiquid market. The $70,847 price point means a 20% down payment of $14,169, which is a low capital requirement. If a buyer can verify gross rents locally and achieve even a modest gross yield, the low purchase price creates the arithmetic possibility of cash flow. But the zero scores on both cash flow and appreciation mean the model is not finding evidence that the rents actually materialize into positive returns, or that price gains are supplementing them. The appreciation buyer has no case here: a year-over-year price decline of 0.16% on a median that was already near the bottom of any national ranking is not an appreciation story. Value-add operators willing to do the local legwork are the only profile that makes structural sense, and even then with eyes open to the illiquidity risk of a 10,028-person county.

No economic anchor data was provided for Madison Parish, so employer-driven demand cannot be assessed from this dataset. That absence alone is notable for a market this small. A county of roughly 10,000 people with no identifiable institutional employer base, university, hospital system, or major industrial tenant faces real questions about rental demand depth and tenant quality. Investors should conduct primary research into local employment before committing capital.

On carry costs, Louisiana's state-average property tax rate of 0.55% is flagged as low, and at a $70,847 purchase price it translates to roughly $390 per year in property taxes. Combined with an estimated $468 in annual insurance, the monthly tax-and-insurance figure comes to $72. That is a genuine tailwind for the cash-flow calculation: a combined $72 per month in tax and insurance is materially below what a similar-priced property would carry in a higher-tax state. The caveat applies here as it does everywhere: 0.55% is a state-average effective rate per Tax Foundation 2024 data, and the actual parish or township rate may differ. Verify the specific assessor figure before closing. Louisiana's insurance market has also been stressed by storm activity in recent years, and the $468 annual estimate may not reflect what a carrier will actually quote on a specific property in this part of the state.

The primary risks here are concentration and demographic. A population of 10,028 in a county with declining home prices means the rental pool is thin, tenant turnover can destabilize cash flow quickly, and resale liquidity is limited. Extended vacancy in a market this small does not get absorbed the way it would in a mid-size metro. There is no vacancy rate in the provided data, but the combination of population size, zero cash-flow score, and declining prices implies the market is not absorbing product at a pace that supports confident underwriting without local verification.

Against its neighbors, Madison Parish is the cheapest by a significant margin: Morehouse Parish prices median homes at $82,759, Concordia at $112,373, Saint Landry at $126,787, and Richland at $157,785. Yet Madison's overall score of 45 is not meaningfully better than any of them, ranging from 41 to 46. Evangeline Parish at $102,561 and an overall score of 46 scores marginally higher while still offering a low price point. Morehouse at $82,759 and a score of 44 is the closest comparable on price. An investor should choose Madison Parish over its neighbors only if they have confirmed rent data showing yields that justify the illiquidity premium that comes with a 10,000-person market, and if the $12,000-to-87,000 price gap over neighbors cannot be bridged by better scores elsewhere. On the current data, none of the neighboring counties make a compelling case either, but the slightly larger populations and higher scores in Evangeline and Saint Landry suggest marginally more market depth for roughly 45% to 79% more in purchase price.