Plymouth County

Plymouth County sits at a gross rent multiplier of roughly 20x and a cap rate of 3.26%, which tells you most of what you need to know before running a single pro forma. The rent-to-price ratio of 5.0% is thin, and at a 6.85% financing rate the math collapses quickly: a leveraged buyer putting 20% down faces an estimated negative $1,636 per month in cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of -13.2%. The county scores 45 out of 100 on cash flow and lands in the 23rd percentile nationally across 1,000 counties, ranking 8th out of 14 Massachusetts counties. Where the story flips is appreciation: an 83 out of 100 appreciation score and 4.0% year-over-year home price growth on a median of $646,858 put Plymouth firmly in the capital-growth camp. This is not a market where you clip coupons on monthly rent checks; it is a market where you underwrite for equity accumulation and hold accordingly.

That appreciation profile narrows the buyer pool considerably. A cash-flow investor running leveraged acquisitions at today's rates will find the numbers unworkable without a significant equity position or an all-cash purchase that sidesteps the $3,391 monthly mortgage drag. An all-cash buyer accepting the 3.26% cap rate is essentially taking a stabilized yield slightly above a ten-year Treasury in exchange for a coastal Massachusetts asset with demonstrated price appreciation, which is a defensible trade if your thesis is long-duration appreciation rather than income. The investor who fits this market best is either an equity-heavy buyer who can stomach sub-4% unlevered yields or a value-add operator who can manufacture yield through renovation and rent growth on a property acquired below the $646,858 median. The affordability index of 14 out of 100 also signals that the renter pool is constrained at higher price points, so chasing premium rents on a large repositioning bet carries real lease-up risk.

The monthly tax and insurance load of $803 is worth a separate look on your underwrite. At a state-average effective property tax rate of 1.23%, Massachusetts falls in a roughly normal range for the Northeast, and the county's propertyTaxFlag reflects that assessment. That said, $7,956 in annual property tax on a $646,858 asset is a fixed cost that does not flex when occupancy slips, and combined with $1,682 in annual insurance it represents over $9,600 per year before you touch debt service or maintenance. At the state-average 1.23% rate, this is not a dealbreaker, but because the data reflects a state-average estimate and actual county or township rates in Plymouth can differ, confirm the assessed rate on any specific parcel before closing your model. A township running materially above the state average would push an already negative cash-flow position further into the red.

The concentration risk in Plymouth is structural rather than regulatory. A $646,858 median price with a 14-out-of-100 affordability index means you are competing for a shallow renter pool relative to the asset cost, and if home prices were to stall or compress, cap rate expansion at the 3.26% level would translate directly into meaningful price declines. There is no vacancy or crime data provided here, so no specific operational risk figures can be cited, but the price-to-rent spread itself introduces the principal risk: any sustained period of rent softness on a negatively leveraged asset requires you to feed the property from reserves or outside income.

Against its neighbors, Plymouth's positioning depends on what you are optimizing for. Worcester County offers a 5.23% rent-to-price ratio at a $481,357 median, a materially better entry point for an income-oriented buyer, and it carries an overall score of 53 versus Plymouth's 50. Franklin County is the outlier in this peer group with a 6.04% rent-to-price ratio and a $355,663 median, the only county in the set that comes close to penciling on leverage at current rates, though its overall score of 54 reflects other trade-offs. Bristol County at 4.66% and Berkshire County at 4.93% both underperform Plymouth on appreciation proxies while offering modestly lower entry prices. Nantucket is a different asset class entirely at a $3.17 million median. You choose Plymouth over its neighbors when your thesis is coastal Massachusetts appreciation and you have the equity cushion to absorb negative leverage, or when you are buying a specific distressed asset below market. You choose Worcester or Franklin when cash flow is the primary underwriting constraint and you need the monthly numbers to work without a deep capital position behind them.