Carroll County

Carroll County sits at a median home price of $208,821, up 8.19% year-over-year, with an affordability index of 85 out of 100. The tool scores it 85 for appreciation and 85 for affordability, but registers a cash-flow score of zero, which tells you most of what you need to know about where this market sits on the spectrum. No cap rate or rent-to-price ratio is available in the provided data, so the cash-flow picture cannot be fully quantified here, but the appreciation-heavy scoring and the zero cash-flow score together signal that Carroll leans toward the price-growth side of the ledger rather than the income side. At a $208,821 purchase price with 20% down ($41,764) and a 6.85% rate, the mortgage alone is a meaningful monthly obligation before you layer in expenses, and the data does not support a scenario where rent comfortably covers it.

This market suits an appreciation buyer or a patient long-hold investor who is comfortable running thin or neutral monthly numbers in exchange for price growth. The 8.19% year-over-year home price increase is the headline argument for that investor: if that trajectory continues even partially, equity accumulation does real work. The affordability index of 85 means entry prices are still accessible relative to income, which supports continued owner and renter demand without the ceiling compression you see in overheated metros. What Carroll does not suit is a cash-flow buyer trying to replace income today. The cash-flow score of zero is not a mild underperformance, it is a flag. A value-add operator could theoretically find angles here given the low absolute price point, but the data does not supply rent figures to confirm the spread.

No economic anchor data was provided for Carroll County, so employment base, major employers, and job stability cannot be assessed from this dataset. For a county of 26,761 people, that gap matters: small-county rental demand is typically driven by a handful of anchors, and an investor should independently verify what is holding up the population and income base before committing capital. Population concentration risk is real at this scale; a single plant closure or employer exit can reprice rents and vacancy simultaneously.

The tax and insurance carry deserves its own line on your underwrite. Ohio's state-average effective property tax rate of 1.56% is flagged as high, and at a $208,821 purchase price that translates to $3,258 in annual property taxes. Combined with $480 in annual insurance, you are looking at $312 per month in tax and insurance alone before mortgage principal, interest, management, maintenance, or vacancy. That is a non-trivial fixed cost in a market where the cash-flow score is already zero. The 1.56% figure is a state-average estimate per Tax Foundation 2024 data, and the note in the dataset is explicit that actual county and township rates may differ. Carroll County should be verified directly, because Ohio's township and school district levy structure can push effective rates meaningfully above or below the state average. If the actual local rate runs above 1.56%, the carry problem gets worse.

The stability score of 50 is the other number that deserves attention. At the midpoint of the scale, it suggests neither the resilience of a large diversified metro nor the extreme fragility of a distressed market, but for a 26,000-person county, a stability score of 50 is a genuine caution. Thin liquidity, limited buyer depth, and sensitivity to local economic shocks are all consistent with this profile. Investors should underwrite for longer hold periods and slower disposition timelines, since a small rural Ohio county is not a market where you can exit quickly at full price if your thesis changes.

Against its neighbors, Carroll's profile is distinctive. Belmont County at $130,448 median and a rent-to-price ratio of 7.24% and Mahoning County at $166,839 with a ratio of 7.31% both offer materially better income yield on paper, with Mahoning adding a larger population base and the Youngstown metro's employer infrastructure. Lucas County at $169,370 and a 7.83% ratio and Cuyahoga County at $211,436 with a 7.83% ratio both deliver stronger rent-to-price characteristics with far larger and more liquid markets. Montgomery County at $195,315 and 7.64% sits in a similar affordability range but with a much larger metro population underpinning demand. Carroll's case over any of these neighbors rests entirely on its 8.19% price appreciation and its affordability score of 85, but none of the neighbors provide comparable YoY appreciation data for a direct comparison. An investor should choose Carroll over these neighbors only if they have a specific thesis around eastern Ohio rural appreciation, are comfortable with a zero cash-flow position, and have done the local verification work on economic drivers and actual tax rates that the dataset cannot supply.