Roscommon County

Roscommon County sits at a median home price of $195,107 with year-over-year appreciation of 2.4%, landing it in the 82nd national percentile overall and 24th out of 83 Michigan counties. The affordability index of 88 confirms you're buying below the state and national norm on price. The cash flow score, however, is recorded as zero, and the cap rate and cash-on-cash figures are not populated in the data, which means this market does not present a clear rental yield story at face value. The appreciation score of 74 is the number doing the real work here, and that frames how you should think about the trade-off: Roscommon skews toward equity accumulation over monthly income, not the reverse.

For a cash-flow-focused buyer who needs the rent check to carry the mortgage from day one, the absence of a calculable cap rate is itself a signal worth taking seriously. The data does not provide a median rent figure for Roscommon, so there is no gross yield to anchor an underwrite. Compare that to Midland County, a neighboring market with a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0786 and a median rent of $1,511 on a $230,644 median price, and you can see immediately where the cash-flow math works more cleanly. What Roscommon does offer is entry at $195,107, which is the lowest median price among the counties in this comparison set, with an affordability index of 88. For an appreciation buyer or a patient buy-and-hold investor who is comfortable with thinner initial yields, the lower basis reduces downside exposure and leaves room for value-add plays if local rents are being pushed by seasonal or recreational demand.

The stability score of 50 is the flag to sit with. A score at the midpoint of the scale tells you this is not a deeply liquid or economically diversified market. No economic anchors are provided in the data, so this analysis cannot point to specific employers or institutional demand drivers. With a county population of 23,556, the rental pool is structurally small, and tenant turnover or a softening of demand from any one segment, whether year-round residents, retirees, or seasonal workers, can move vacancy in ways that a larger metro absorbs more easily. That concentration risk is not invented here; it follows directly from the population figure and the lack of identified economic anchors.

On carrying costs, the property tax rate is a real line item. At 1.54%, the state-average effective rate is high enough to put on its own row in your underwrite, and the data flags it explicitly as "high." Combined with insurance, you are looking at $293 per month in tax and insurance alone before you touch debt service, maintenance, or management. On a $195,107 purchase with a 20% down at 6.85%, those two line items alone represent a material drag that narrows any margin that gross rent might otherwise provide. The honest caveat from the source data applies here: 1.54% is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and the actual county or township rate in Roscommon may differ, so verify the mill rate directly before closing.

Among the neighboring counties in this data set, Midland stands out for investors who prioritize cash flow. Its rent-to-price ratio of 0.0786 is the highest of the group, and even though its median price of $230,644 is $35,000 higher than Roscommon, the rental income picture is demonstrably clearer. Ingham County at a 0.0724 ratio and Genesee at 0.0698 both offer yield data that Roscommon currently cannot match on paper. Genesee is actually cheaper at $185,183, so if price is the deciding factor and you want a county with a documented rent figure, Genesee narrows that gap. You choose Roscommon over these neighbors when you are optimizing for low acquisition cost, are comfortable underwriting a recreational or retirement-driven rental demand profile that the data does not fully quantify, and are building a position for medium-term appreciation rather than immediate cash distribution. If you need the rent to cover expenses from month one and want a rent-to-price ratio above 0.07, the neighboring counties with populated yield data are the more transparent bet.