Rock County

Rock County, Nebraska sits at a median home price of $135,866, which makes it one of the more affordable entry points among the Nebraska counties in this data set. The problem is that the investment estimate returns zeroes across the board: cap rate, cash-on-cash, estimated cash flow, and monthly mortgage are all blank. That is not a rounding artifact, it reflects missing rental market data, meaning there is no usable rent estimate to anchor a cash-flow underwrite. What the data does show is a price-to-rent ratio that cannot be calculated here, a year-over-year home price change of negative 0.41%, and an affordability index of 95 out of 100, which signals that locals can comfortably afford to buy rather than being pushed into renting by cost. The appreciation score lands at 48 and the cash-flow score at 0, placing this county firmly at the low end of both spectrums. A 62nd-percentile national rank out of 1,000 counties and an overall score of 63 describe a market that is mediocre by the numbers, not a standout in any single category.

The investor profile this market does not suit is anyone who needs yield confirmation before committing capital. Without a verifiable rent estimate, you cannot close a cap rate, you cannot stress-test debt service coverage, and you cannot compare this asset against alternatives in a disciplined way. The affordability index of 95 also signals limited rental demand pressure: when median income at $57,566 makes homeownership accessible, the renter pool tends to be thinner and more transient. If a buyer is drawn here, it would have to be on an opportunistic basis, perhaps a value-add operator who has done primary research on local rents and sees the $135,866 price point as a low-cost entry for a specific use case, or a legacy buyer with existing operational infrastructure in the region. An appreciation thesis is hard to build on a market showing negative 0.41% price growth and a population of 1,312 people.

The economic context in Rock County is absent from this data set. No economic anchors or employer notes are provided, so no employment base can be described here. What the population figure alone implies is a very thin local economy. At 1,312 residents, Rock is a micro-rural county where the tenant pool is small, turnover risk is high relative to larger markets, and the cost of a single extended vacancy can materially damage annual returns. These are structural conditions, not temporary cyclical ones.

On carry costs, the tax and insurance picture is material. The state-average effective property tax rate for Nebraska is 1.73%, which the data flags as high, and at that rate this deserves its own line on the underwrite. On a $135,866 purchase, that translates to $2,350 in annual property tax. Add $788 in annual insurance at the 0.58% estimate, and you are looking at $262 per month in combined tax and insurance before a single dollar of mortgage, maintenance, management, or vacancy reserve. That $262 baseline matters a great deal when you do not yet have a confirmed rent number, because it sets the floor that gross rent must clear before the property breaks even on those two line items alone. The honest caveat from the data is explicit: the 1.73% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024, and actual county and township rates in Rock County may differ. Verify the actual levy before underwriting.

The concentrated risk here is demographic and structural. A county of 1,312 people has essentially no margin for error on occupancy. One vacancy in a single-family rental is not a portfolio statistic, it is a binary income event. There is no data here on regulatory environment or zoning, but rural Nebraska counties at this population level typically lack the tenant-protection overlay risk seen in urban markets, which is a modest positive. The price decline of 0.41% year-over-year is small in absolute terms but worth watching as a directional signal in a county with no documented population growth driver.

Among the neighboring counties provided, Rock is the cheapest by median price but also the least liquid. Lancaster County at $288,588 median has a confirmed rent-to-price ratio of 5.26% and a real rental market, though its overall score of 62 is nearly identical to Rock's 63. Lincoln County at $214,661 carries a 5.14% rent-to-price ratio and scores 65, offering a slightly better combination of yield signal and market depth. Madison County at $258,740 posts the strongest rent-to-price ratio in the comparison set at 5.53% and also scores 65, meaning it offers more measurable cash-flow potential at a higher price. Hitchcock County at $146,451 is the closest in price to Rock but carries no rent data either and scores 61. Knox County at $168,376 also lacks rent data and scores 63. The case for choosing Rock over any of these neighbors comes down entirely to whether a buyer has independent confirmation of local rents and a specific acquisition thesis at the $135,866 price point. On the data available, Lincoln or Madison County offers a more defensible underwrite.