Marion County

Marion County sits at a median home price of $142,965 with 5.2% year-over-year appreciation, placing it at the 98th percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties ranked and first in Mississippi. The affordability index of 99 is about as high as it gets, meaning buyers face almost no affordability friction relative to incomes. The tool's cash-flow score registers zero, which reflects missing rent and operating data rather than confirmed negative cash flow, so underwriters should treat that as an incomplete picture rather than a red flag. What the data does confirm is that this is a market oriented toward appreciation and affordability, not one where published rent-to-price ratios are available to anchor a yield calculation the way neighboring Hinds County's 12.85% gross ratio can.

The appreciation score of 86 out of 100 and a 5.2% price gain over the trailing year make Marion most attractive to a patient buy-and-hold investor who wants low entry costs and is comfortable with modest near-term income while the asset appreciates. At $142,965 a buyer puts down roughly $28,600 at a 20% LTV, which is a low capital requirement that leaves room to deploy reserves or acquire multiple doors. The stability score of 50 is middling, suggesting the market is neither a fortress nor a distressed outlier, so concentration in multiple properties here rather than a single large bet is the more prudent structure. Value-add operators who can manufacture rent through renovation have the clearest path, because the low acquisition basis means even a modest forced-appreciation play leaves substantial margin.

Combined property taxes and insurance run approximately $156 per month on a median-priced asset, based on a state-average effective tax rate of 0.81% and an insurance rate of 0.50%. The 0.81% rate is tagged "normal" by the underlying Tax Foundation data, so it does not represent a meaningful headwind or tailwind relative to national norms. That said, this is a state-average estimate and county and township rates in Marion can differ, so pull the actual millage schedule before closing. The $156 monthly carry cost is real and should sit on your underwrite alongside debt service; at a 6.85% rate on $114,372 of financed principal, the mortgage itself will consume a meaningful share of any gross rent collected, so confirming local achievable rents before contracting is non-negotiable given the absent rent data in this dataset.

Marion County's nearest scored neighbors offer a useful calibration. Hinds County, at $125,429 median and a gross rent-to-price ratio of 12.85%, is the most yield-visible market in the comparison set and scores 76 overall, three points below Marion. An investor prioritizing documented cash-flow yield may actually prefer Hinds on current data, because the 1.28% monthly gross rent ratio is a real number rather than an inference. Lee County at $196,256 median and a 7.77% gross ratio represents the appreciation-premium end of the neighbor set, scoring 75, and offers better infrastructure and population scale at a higher entry cost. Scott County and Holmes County both score 76, with Holmes carrying a $84,259 median that implies deep affordability but also raises concentration and liquidity questions. Marion's case for selection over these neighbors rests on its first-in-state ranking, its top-2% national percentile, and its combination of still-affordable pricing with above-average appreciation velocity. An investor who wants the highest-ranked market in Mississippi at a sub-$143,000 entry point chooses Marion. An investor who needs current rent data to model cash-on-cash before acquiring looks at Hinds first.

The primary risk to flag is data incompleteness. With no confirmed median rent or cap rate for Marion itself, any income projection is an extrapolation from comparable markets. A county of 24,362 people is also small enough that vacancy swings tied to a single employer or demographic shift can move absorption materially. No employment anchor data was provided for Marion, so job-base concentration cannot be assessed here and warrants local diligence before committing capital. Regulatory and zoning risk are similarly unquantifiable from the available inputs. The appreciation trend is real and the affordability floor is genuine, but the missing income-side numbers mean this market rewards investors who can underwrite from first-principles rent surveys rather than those who need a model to do it for them.