Crawford County

Crawford County prices in at a $179,615 median with 4.33% year-over-year appreciation, landing it in the 95th percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties ranked and 6th in Michigan out of 83. That is a genuinely strong appreciation score of 84 out of 100. The cash flow score, however, comes in at zero, and the cap rate and cash-on-cash return fields are empty, which tells you something important before you even run a spreadsheet: this market does not pencil as a yield play on paper. The affordability index of 92 and a median price well under $200,000 keep the entry bar low, but low price alone does not manufacture cash flow if rents do not follow. Crawford sits clearly on the appreciation end of the spectrum, with stability scoring only 50, which signals meaningful cyclical or demographic risk beneath the headline appreciation number.

The investor this market suits is someone building long-term equity in a low-entry-cost Michigan market who can tolerate compressed or neutral near-term cash flow. An appreciation buyer targeting a sub-$180,000 purchase with 4.33% annual price growth gets a real return on a modest capital outlay, assuming they hold through any softness. A value-add operator who can manufacture rent premium through renovation has the low purchase price working in their favor, but they need to verify local rent ceilings before committing, since the tool is not surfacing a county-level rent figure for Crawford. A pure cash-flow buyer should look elsewhere, full stop. The numbers as provided do not support a yield-first thesis here.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Crawford County, so drawing conclusions about job-driven rental demand would require outside research. What the population figure does signal is that at 13,197 residents, this is a small, rural county. Thin population bases can mean shallow rental demand pools, which is consistent with the stability score of 50. Small markets can also mean that a single large employer departure or a seasonal demand swing moves vacancy rates in ways that a diversified urban market absorbs more easily. Investors operating here need to underwrite conservatively on occupancy assumptions.

On carry costs, the $269 per month combined tax and insurance figure is a real line item that matters when cash flow is already under pressure. The property tax rate is flagged as high, sitting at a state-average effective rate of 1.54%, which translates to roughly $2,766 annually on a $179,615 purchase. At that rate, the tax bill alone is high enough to deserve its own line in your underwrite, and you should budget accordingly before assuming any positive monthly spread. The insurance estimate adds another $467 annually, or about $39 per month, which is manageable but not trivial on a thin-margin asset. The honest caveat embedded in the data is worth repeating: 1.54% is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and your actual rate will depend on the specific township within Crawford County, which can differ materially. Pull the county assessor data before closing.

The concentration risk here is structural. A county of 13,197 people with a stability score of 50 is exposed to demographic drift, and northern Michigan rural counties broadly face out-migration pressure from working-age cohorts. If the appreciation thesis is driven partly by second-home or recreational buyers rather than primary residents, that segment is sensitive to interest rate cycles and discretionary income in ways that primary rental demand is not. There is no vacancy or crime data in the provided dataset, so those risks cannot be quantified here, but any investor doing due diligence should pull local vacancy trends independently.

Among the neighboring counties, Crawford's $179,615 median and 76 overall score puts it above Iron County ($138,682, score 75), Bay County ($175,060, score 75), and Gratiot County ($172,768, score 75), while sitting below Chippewa County ($202,561, score 78) and Huron County ($198,226, score 74). The most useful comparison is Bay County, which is the only neighbor with a rent figure in the dataset: $1,143 per month and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0784. Bay County's yield profile is meaningfully more visible than Crawford's, and for a cash-flow buyer, Bay County makes the case for itself with actual rent data. Crawford makes sense over its neighbors specifically for an investor whose primary thesis is appreciation and affordability combined, and who is comfortable holding a small-market, low-liquidity asset through cycles. If yield certainty matters more than price growth, the neighbor with the rent numbers wins.