Bolivar County

Bolivar County's median home price of $118,382 is among the lowest you'll find anywhere in the continental US, and the affordability index hitting 100 out of 100 confirms it. Home prices have declined 7.52% year-over-year, which means anyone who bought recently is already underwater on paper, and forward-looking appreciation prospects are thin at best, reflected in an appreciation score of just 10 out of 100. The cash-flow score registers at zero, and the cap rate and cash-on-cash return fields carry no usable figures in this data set, which is itself a signal worth sitting with. At a purchase price of $118,382 with a 6.85% rate, the mortgage math is workable on paper, but the missing rent and expense figures mean you cannot build a reliable pro forma from this data alone without significant local market research.

The investor this market could theoretically suit is a cash-flow buyer hunting absolute-dollar entry price, not a percentage-yield buyer. At $118,382 all-in, even modest rents could produce acceptable yields if gross rent-to-price ratios hold up, but the cash-flow score of zero suggests the tool's underlying rent data doesn't support that thesis here. An appreciation buyer has essentially no case: a 7.52% price decline year-over-year and an appreciation score of 10 point away from any near-term upside. A value-add operator looking for deep-discount distressed inventory might find raw material at this price point, but the shrinking price trend suggests demand constraints are structural, not a temporary dislocation. The overall score of 49 out of 100 and a national percentile of 21 place Bolivar in the bottom quarter of the 1,000 counties ranked, which is the clearest single-number summary of where this market sits.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Bolivar County, so this analysis cannot speak to job base, major employers, or institutional demand drivers for rentals. That absence is itself informative: a market this affordable, with declining prices and a population of 30,688, warrants hard questions about what is sustaining rental demand and whether the renter pool is growing or contracting. Those are due-diligence items you will need to resolve with local property managers and census tract data before committing capital.

On carry costs, the combined monthly tax and insurance estimate is $129, based on a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.81% and an insurance rate of 0.50%. That note bears repeating: the 0.81% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual county or township rates in Bolivar may differ materially. The propertyTaxFlag is "normal," meaning this rate is not an unusual drag or tailwind relative to Mississippi norms. At a $118,382 purchase price, $129 per month for tax and insurance is a manageable fixed cost, but it will consume a meaningful share of gross rent if market rents are at the lower end of the Mississippi Delta range, which is the realistic expectation in a county at this price point.

The primary risk here is structural demographic decline. A population of 30,688 combined with a 7.52% year-over-year price drop suggests demand for housing is softening, not tightening. In a small-population county with no disclosed economic anchors, a thin renter pool means vacancy risk is elevated by default, even if this data set does not provide a specific vacancy figure. Concentration risk is also real: with a single-employer shutdown or agricultural cycle downturn in a county this size, the ripple through the rental market can be severe and prolonged. Regulatory risk is not flagged by the data, but Mississippi is generally a landlord-friendly state, which is a mild positive for operators.

Among the five neighboring counties provided, Bolivar's median price of $118,382 sits between Leflore County at $79,565 and Adams County at $116,847, while Panola ($184,391), Yalobusha ($144,720), and Jones ($149,816) are all priced meaningfully higher. Bolivar and Adams are nearly price-equivalent, but Adams scores 46 overall versus Bolivar's 49, making Bolivar marginally better by this metric at comparable cost. Leflore is cheaper still at $79,565 and scores 51, suggesting it may offer better relative value if your strategy is pure price-point entry. Panola at $184,391 and a score of 51 is the highest-priced and highest-scoring neighbor, suggesting a more liquid market with somewhat better demand fundamentals. Choose Bolivar over its neighbors only if you have specific, locally-verified rent data that supports a yield unavailable at the higher price points, and only after stress-testing your assumptions against a continued population and price contraction scenario.