Carter County

Carter County, Montana sits at a median home price of $180,468 with home values essentially flat, down 0.6% year over year. The investment estimate data returns zeros across the board for cap rate, cash flow, and cash-on-cash return, which signals that the rental income data needed to complete those calculations is absent, not that the market produces no income. What the data does support is a read on affordability: the affordability index of 72 and a median household income of $46,486 against a sub-$181K median price put this county firmly in affordable territory by Montana standards. The overall score of 55 out of 100, a national percentile of 36, and a state rank of 31 out of 56 Montana counties place Carter in the lower half of markets on both scales. This is not a market leading on any single dimension; it is a market that avoids being terrible on most of them.

With a cash-flow score of zero and an appreciation score of 47, Carter does not clearly suit either a pure yield buyer or an appreciation-chasing buyer. The appreciation score of 47, combined with a negative price trend over the past year, suggests the market is not running hot. A value-add operator willing to work in a very thin, illiquid market might find the low median price attractive as an entry point, but illiquidity at 1,332 residents is the central constraint on any strategy. If you need to exit in three years or refi out of a heavy renovation, a county with this population makes that genuinely hard. The affordability score of 72 does create a theoretical floor under prices, since incomes relative to home prices are reasonable, but that floor only matters if there is a buyer pool deep enough to find when you need one.

No economic anchors data was provided for Carter County, so job-base depth and employer concentration cannot be assessed from this data set. What the population figure alone tells a serious investor is that the rental demand pool is extremely shallow. At 1,332 residents, total occupied housing units are likely measured in the hundreds. A single vacancy can distort your personal occupancy rate significantly, and tenant turnover carries outsized risk when your replacement tenant universe is small. The stability score of 50 is consistent with that read: not collapsing, but not anchored by the kind of institutional employer base or population trend that makes a rural market defensible.

The tax and insurance carry on a $180,468 purchase comes to $182 per month combined, using a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.83% and an insurance rate of 0.38%. The 0.83% rate is flagged as normal, meaning it is neither a tailwind nor a meaningful headwind. Against Montana peers it is unremarkable. The $1,498 in annual property tax and $686 in annual insurance are modest in absolute terms, which is consistent with the low price point. Worth noting: the 0.83% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual county or township rates in Carter County may differ. Pull the county assessor data before you finalize any underwrite.

The primary risks here are concentration and liquidity, both flowing from the same source: 1,332 people is a very small market. There is no tenant diversification, no meaningful commercial activity implied by the data, and no buffer against a single large employer departure or demographic outflow, even though employer data is not provided. Demographic risk in ultra-rural Montana counties is well-documented at the state level, and a county already sitting below 1,400 residents has limited room to absorb population loss without it becoming a structural problem for property values and rental demand alike.

Against its neighbors, Carter is the cheapest entry point in the comparison set by a meaningful margin. Treasure County comes in at $202,948 with the same overall score of 55, Custer at $230,529 with a score of 56, and Cascade County at $331,268 with a score of 57 and an actual rent-to-price ratio on record at 4.84%. That Cascade figure is the only market in the neighbor set where rental income data exists, and a 4.84% rent-to-price ratio on a $331K median is a materially more investable profile than anything Carter's numbers imply. Carbon County at $486,506 and a score of 56 is clearly an appreciation or lifestyle play, not a yield story. If you are choosing between Carter and its neighbors purely on cash-flow potential with real data behind it, Cascade County is the only one in this set that gives you numbers to underwrite. The case for choosing Carter over any neighbor comes down to one thing: lowest absolute entry price. If you have a specific, defensible use case, such as owner-finance, land banking, or agricultural income layering, the low price point has a logic to it. As a conventional buy-and-hold rental play, the data as provided does not make a compelling argument for Carter over the alternatives.