Belmont County

Belmont County sits at the cash-flow end of the Ohio rental spectrum, but investors need to look carefully at the numbers before assuming it's a straightforward buy. The gross rent-to-price ratio of 8.71% is genuinely high, ranking Belmont in the 93rd percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties analyzed, and the 5.66% cap rate is respectable for a county where the median home price is $132,616. That price point alone explains a lot: you're buying cheap, rents at $982.83 median are proportionally elevated, and home price appreciation of 1.49% year-over-year is modest but not irrelevant at this basis. The affordability index sits at a perfect 100, meaning Belmont is about as accessible as it gets for an investor deploying limited capital. What complicates the picture is the leveraged return: at a 6.85% interest rate with 20% down, the model produces a monthly mortgage of $695, estimated expenses of $337, and a cash flow of negative $69 per month, translating to a cash-on-cash return of -2.71%. That's not a disaster, but it is a reminder that gross yield and actual leveraged return diverge sharply when financing costs are elevated. Belmont is a cash-flow market in structure, not yet in execution at current rates.

This market suits two buyer profiles more than it suits one. The first is the all-cash or low-leverage buyer who can actually capture that 5.66% cap rate without debt service eroding it; at $132,616 acquisition cost, the all-in equity requirement is manageable and the unlevered yield is competitive against comparable-risk assets. The second is the patient accumulator who buys at this price point, tolerates a small monthly carry deficit now, and waits for either rate compression to refinance or rents to absorb the gap. Appreciation buyers looking for 6-8% annual price growth should look elsewhere: 1.49% YoY is a maintenance-of-value number, not a wealth-building number. Value-add operators will find the low price basis useful for renovation spreads, but the shallow population base of 66,554 means the resale exit pool is limited, so value-add works better as a rent-lift play than a flip.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Belmont County, so this analysis won't speculate about the local job base. What the stability score of 50 does communicate is that rental demand here is not underpinned by the kind of diversified employment base you'd find in a larger metro. That's a real consideration when underwriting vacancy assumptions; even a single-digit occupancy miss can flip the already-thin leveraged cash flow negative in a more meaningful way.

The tax and insurance picture deserves its own line on your underwrite. The combined monthly tax and insurance figure of $198 is already baked into the $337 estimated expense figure, but the underlying property tax rate is worth flagging explicitly. Ohio's state-average effective rate is 1.56%, which the data flags as high, and at that rate on a $132,616 asset you're looking at roughly $2,069 annually in property taxes alone. That's a real cost drag for a property at this price point: annual taxes equal roughly 1.56% of purchase price, which is a nontrivial carrying cost when your cap rate is 5.66%. Be aware that the 1.56% figure is a state-average estimate based on Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual Belmont County or township-level rates may differ, so pull the county auditor's mill rate before finalizing your numbers. Insurance at $305 annually is low, reflecting Ohio's relatively benign catastrophe exposure, and that's a small tailwind worth keeping.

The primary risks here are concentration and demographic. A county of 66,554 in a largely rural portion of eastern Ohio has limited economic diversification by definition, and the stability score of 50, the lowest of Belmont's five scored categories, reflects that. Population trajectory data wasn't provided, but at this size and in this geography, flat-to-declining population is a reasonable baseline assumption to stress-test. Regulatory risk in Ohio is generally investor-friendly compared to coastal markets, but no specific local ordinance data was provided, so verify with the municipality for any rental registration or inspection requirements.

Compared to its neighbors, Belmont's core advantage is price. Lucas County's median home price is $169,370 with a rent-to-price ratio of 7.83%; Mahoning County comes in at $166,839 with a ratio of 7.31%. Both carry higher absolute acquisition costs and lower gross yield than Belmont's 8.71%, and both score similarly overall (75 and 74 respectively versus Belmont's 75). Van Wert County scores one point higher at 77 but carries a $186,971 median price, substantially more capital at risk for an investor operating in this tier. Scioto and Crawford counties score 76 each at $135,788 and $152,867 respectively, but rent data wasn't available for either, making yield comparison impossible. The case for Belmont over its neighbors is straightforward when you're optimizing for lowest-basis entry and highest gross yield: no neighboring county in this dataset beats Belmont's rent-to-price ratio. Choose a neighbor instead when you need a larger, more liquid rental market, when you want a deeper resale exit pool, or when you believe a higher-priced county has better employment anchors that will support rent growth Belmont may not deliver.