Nassau County

Nassau County sits at a median home price of $851,504 and a median rent of $3,646, producing a gross rent-to-price ratio of 0.51%. That is a thin yield by any standard. The model underwrite confirms it: at a 6.85% rate with 20% down, the monthly mortgage alone runs $4,464, estimated expenses add another $1,276, and rents cover neither, leaving a projected cash flow of negative $2,094 per month and a cash-on-cash return of negative 12.83%. The cap rate of 3.34% sits well below the borrowing rate, meaning leverage works against you here, not for you. Nassau scores 47 out of 100 on cash flow, 88 on appreciation, and lands at the 23rd percentile nationally overall. That distribution tells you exactly what this market is: an appreciation play wearing a rental property's clothing.

The investor this market suits is not a cash-flow buyer. The numbers above make that clear without further discussion. Nassau is a market for the appreciation-oriented buyer who can carry negative leverage, has a long hold horizon, and is buying primarily for price growth, which came in at 5.75% year-over-year. It could also attract a value-add operator targeting a property with genuine upside in rent or unit count, but even then, the entry price at $851,504 median leaves very little margin before the math deteriorates further. An affordability index of 6 out of 100 signals that the renter pool faces real constraints, which puts a ceiling on how aggressively rents can be pushed. The appreciation score of 88 is the one number that argues for being here at all, and only investors who weight that heavily relative to current income should be underwriting Nassau.

The tax and insurance picture is a material underwriting item, not a footnote. Using the state-average effective rate of 1.72% (a Tax Foundation 2024 estimate, with the caveat that actual Nassau county and township rates can differ), annual property taxes come to $14,646 and annual insurance runs $2,044, combining for $1,391 per month in tax and insurance carry alone. That figure represents 38% of the $3,646 median rent before a single dollar of mortgage, maintenance, or vacancy is accounted for. At 1.72%, New York's state-average rate is high enough to deserve its own line on every underwrite, and investors should pull the actual Nassau assessor data before closing, since Long Island's township-level tax structure can produce rates that diverge meaningfully from the state average in either direction.

The concentration risk here is straightforward: Nassau is a single-market bet on the continued desirability of the New York metropolitan area's eastern suburban ring. With a population of 1,389,160 it is a large, dense county, which reduces some idiosyncratic risk, but the investment thesis depends entirely on metro New York remaining a high-demand, supply-constrained residential market. New York's regulatory environment is also a genuine consideration. The state has enacted significant tenant-protection legislation in recent years, and Nassau landlords operating under those rules face constraints on rent increases, eviction timelines, and lease non-renewals that are materially different from landlord-friendly states. That does not make the market uninvestable, but it adds operational friction and should be modeled into your hold-period assumptions.

Comparing Nassau to its neighbors clarifies the trade-off precisely. Queens County sits at a $722,489 median with a rent-to-price ratio of 0.499%, Westchester at $824,579 with 0.439%, Rockland at $724,554 with 0.489%, and Richmond County (Staten Island) at $701,776 with 0.412%. Nassau's 0.514% ratio is actually the highest among these five neighbors, which is a meaningful, if still insufficient, distinction. Westchester and Richmond both carry worse yield ratios on lower prices, which does not improve their cash-flow math materially but does reduce nominal carry. Queens at $722,489 is the most interesting comparison: lower entry price, nearly equivalent yield ratio, and direct subway access to Manhattan employment, which arguably supports a comparable or stronger rental demand story. An investor should choose Nassau over these neighbors specifically if their thesis centers on single-family residential appreciation in the Long Island housing market, or if they have identified a specific submarket or property type where actual achieved rents exceed the county median by enough to shift the cash-flow profile. On raw numbers alone, Nassau is the hardest market in this peer group to make work as a cash-flow rental.