Keweenaw County

Keweenaw County scores an 87 on appreciation and a 0 on cash flow, which tells you everything you need to know before reading another word. With a median home price of $196,365 and a cash-flow score of zero, the model finds no meaningful spread between rent and carrying costs at current financing rates. The 5.46% year-over-year price growth is doing the work here, not monthly income. There is no cap rate or rent-to-price ratio in the provided data, which itself is a signal: this is a market where the cash-flow math either doesn't close or is too thin to model confidently at a 6.85% rate on a 20% down purchase ($39,273 down, $196,365 in).

That appreciation score of 87, ranking Keweenaw 88th nationally out of 1,000 counties and 16th out of 83 Michigan counties, places it firmly in the appreciation-play category. The affordability index of 77 against a median income of $55,560 suggests the local buyer pool is not priced out, which provides some floor under values. But this is not a market for the investor who needs their property to service its debt from rent. The cash-on-cash return is effectively zero at current inputs. An appreciation buyer or someone willing to carry a small loss monthly in exchange for price gains is the right profile here. A value-add operator could potentially find angles in a market with a median price under $200,000 and above-average appreciation, but without rent data, underwriting any forced-appreciation play requires independent rent comparables from outside this dataset.

The economic context in Keweenaw requires sober eyes. This is one of the smallest counties in Michigan by population, at 2,088 residents. No economic anchors are provided in the data, and the stability score of 50 reflects a market that is not underpinned by a diversified employer base or institutional demand drivers that show up in the model. A population this small means the rental universe is correspondingly thin, liquidity at exit is limited, and any vacancy period carries disproportionate weight on annual returns. The 5.46% price appreciation is notable precisely because it's happening in a market this size, which may point to second-home or recreational demand rather than primary-residence job-driven growth. That distinction matters for underwriting: recreational demand can reverse faster than employment-driven demand.

On carry costs, the $295 per month in combined property tax and insurance is a real line item at this price point. Using the state-average effective rate of 1.54% (Tax Foundation 2024, with the honest caveat that your actual county or township rate may differ), annual property tax runs approximately $3,024, with insurance adding another $511 annually. At a 1.54% rate, Michigan's property tax burden is high enough to deserve its own line on your underwrite, particularly when cash flow is already at zero before taxes. If the actual Keweenaw township rate comes in above the state average, a deal that pencils at break-even becomes a deal that costs you money every month. Pull the actual millage rate for any specific parcel before committing.

The primary risks here are concentration and liquidity. A county of 2,088 people has a rental market measured in dozens of units, not thousands. One bad tenant, one extended vacancy, or one shift in recreational-use patterns can move your personal returns materially. There is no depth of demand to absorb errors. Regulatory risk is not specifically flagged in the data, but small rural counties in Michigan can present their own permitting and code-enforcement dynamics that differ from metro areas. Demographic risk is implicit in the population size: there is no data here on population growth or decline, but a county this small warrants direct research into whether residents are aging out and leaving or whether new buyers are arriving.

Against its neighbors, Keweenaw's overall score of 73 is competitive, edging Midland (72), Genesee (72), and Ionia (72), while roughly matching Huron (74) and Saginaw (74). The meaningful comparison is on the cash-flow axis. Midland County offers a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0786 with a median rent of $1,511 on a $230,644 median price. Saginaw runs a 0.0774 ratio at $1,059 rent on a $164,018 price point. Genesee sits at 0.0698 with a $1,077 rent. All three of those counties produce actual rent numbers, meaning the cash-flow math is at least in play. An investor whose primary objective is current income should be looking at Saginaw or Midland before Keweenaw. Choose Keweenaw over its neighbors only if you are specifically positioned for appreciation, are comfortable carrying a property that generates little or no monthly income, and have done your own on-the-ground rent research to verify whether any yield exists at the parcel level.