Coos County

Coos County sits at a gross rent-to-price ratio of 0.59%, annualizing to roughly 7.1% on paper, which sounds promising until you run the actual numbers. At a $259,406 purchase price with 20% down, a 6.85% mortgage generates $1,360 in monthly principal and interest. Add $521 in monthly taxes and insurance alone, and you are already at $1,881 in carry costs before a single maintenance dollar, vacancy reserve, or management fee. Median rent is $1,280. The model spits out negative $528 in monthly cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of negative 10.62%. The cap rate of 3.85% tells the same story from a different angle: at current interest rates, the unlevered yield does not cover the cost of debt. This is not a cash-flow market.

That framing determines exactly who should and should not be here. A cash-flow buyer underwriting to debt coverage needs this market to reprice meaningfully, either through rent increases or a purchase price well below $259,000, before the math works. The appreciation score of 48 out of 100, combined with a year-over-year home price change of negative 0.45%, rules out the passive appreciation play as well. Coos scores a 74 on affordability and ranks third out of ten New Hampshire counties on overall score, which positions it as a potential value-add target if an operator can buy below median, force equity through renovation, and refinance or sell into a stabilized asset. The population of 31,430 sets a hard ceiling on tenant depth, so any value-add strategy depends on executing quickly rather than riding a demand wave.

New Hampshire's property tax situation deserves its own line on your underwrite. The state-average effective rate used here is 2.18%, which the Tax Foundation flags as very high, and this analysis carries that flag for good reason. At that rate, the annual tax burden on a $259,406 asset is approximately $5,655, or $471 per month before a single insurance dollar. Combined with $50 in estimated insurance, the $521 monthly tax-and-insurance figure is not a rounding error; it is 41% of the median rent all by itself. Investors underwriting New Hampshire properties sometimes anchor on the absence of a state income or sales tax, which is a real benefit for residents but does nothing to offset property tax drag at the asset level. Note that 2.18% is a state-average estimate, and actual county or township rates in Coos can differ materially, so pull the specific mill rate for any parcel before finalizing your model.

The neighboring county comparisons reveal a consistent pattern across New Hampshire: higher price points, higher rents, and rent-to-price ratios that are actually slightly worse than Coos. Rockingham County sits at a median home price of $599,250 with a rent-to-price ratio of 0.47%, the weakest in this peer group. Merrimack and Hillsborough are in the $471,000 to $503,000 range with ratios of 0.49%. Grafton County is the closest comparator, with a ratio of 0.59%, nearly identical to Coos, and an overall score of 60 versus Coos's 57, at a median price of $413,099. If you are willing to accept similar cash-flow math and a lower barrier to entry, Coos's lower acquisition cost could make it the right call over Grafton, but the population difference matters: Grafton's proximity to Dartmouth and the Upper Valley creates a different tenant base and a more durable demand floor. Coos does not have an equivalent anchor in the provided data, which is itself worth noting.

The primary risks here are concentration and demographic trajectory. A 31,430-person county with flat to declining home values and no named economic anchor in the data has limited insulation against a single employer contraction or a sustained population outflow. Tenant turnover in thin rental markets is expensive, and vacancy periods in a small-pool market can run longer than regional averages would suggest. None of this makes Coos uninvestable, but it narrows the viable strategy to one profile: a disciplined operator buying at a meaningful discount to the $259,000 median, with a clear value-add plan, low leverage or seller financing, and a realistic exit that does not depend on appreciation bailing out the underwrite.