Johnson County

Johnson County, Tennessee sits at a median home price of $256,718 with year-over-year appreciation of 2.17%, scoring 72 on appreciation and landing at the 70th percentile nationally out of 1,000 counties ranked. The cash-flow score, however, is zero, which tells you most of what you need to know about the buy-and-hold math here. No cap rate or gross rent multiplier data is provided in this dataset, so underwriting from scratch matters more here than in markets where those figures are readily available. The affordability index of 75 and a median price under $260,000 keep the entry point accessible relative to many Tennessee metros, but without corresponding rent data for this county, the price-to-rent relationship cannot be quantified directly. What the scores do confirm is that this market skews appreciation, not income.

That makes Johnson County a narrower fit than a diversified market. An appreciation buyer who wants a low entry price, modest annual price growth, and Tennessee's landlord-friendly regulatory environment has a reasonable case here. The 2.17% annual price gain is real but unspectacular; this is not a high-velocity market, so the appreciation thesis requires patience rather than a short hold. A pure cash-flow buyer should pass: the cash-flow score of zero signals that rents, relative to prices, are not covering operating costs with any margin at standard leverage around 6.85%. A value-add operator could find opportunity if they can manufacture equity through renovation to force appreciation in a market that is already on an upward trend, but the thin population base of 17,982 limits the tenant pool they can draw from, which is a real execution risk for that strategy.

No economic anchors or employer data were provided for Johnson County, so the demand-side story cannot be told with specifics here. What the stability score of 50, sitting exactly at the midpoint, does suggest is a market without either the cushion of a diversified major employer base or the fragility of a single-industry town, at least as far as the available data reflects. Investors who rely on job-market depth to underwrite vacancy risk should treat that 50 as a reason to do primary research on the local economy before committing capital.

On carry costs, the combined monthly tax and insurance estimate comes to $229, based on a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.71% and an insurance rate of 0.36%, per Tax Foundation 2024 figures. That tax rate falls in the normal range and does not create an unusual drag on cash flow; Tennessee's low property tax burden is a real structural tailwind for landlords relative to high-tax states. The caveat here matters practically: this is a state-average estimate, and actual county and township rates in Johnson County may differ, so pulling the local assessor's current millage rate before closing is basic underwriting hygiene, not optional. At $229 per month combined, carry costs are manageable, but in a market with a cash-flow score of zero, every line item is load-bearing.

The population of under 18,000 is the most consequential risk in this dataset. Small, rural Tennessee counties can see disproportionate swings in occupancy when a single employer exits or when demographic outmigration accelerates, and a limited sample of rentable properties means any individual asset's vacancy is poorly correlated with a county-level average. Concentration risk is real: if your rental strategy depends on three or four units in a county this size, one prolonged vacancy hits your portfolio return harder than it would in a larger market.

Compared to the five neighboring counties provided, Johnson scores an overall 66, which trails both Rhea County (68) and Lincoln County (68), both of which are priced similarly, Rhea at $266,373 and Lincoln at $257,281. Those two markets offer slightly better composite scores at comparable entry prices, so an investor indifferent to geography should at minimum model Rhea and Lincoln before defaulting to Johnson. Carroll County scores 63 with a median price of $180,314, which would appeal to a cash-flow buyer willing to accept a lower-scoring market in exchange for a lower basis. Anderson County and Greene County both have published rent data and rent-to-price ratios of 0.0636 and 0.0652 respectively, which gives an underwriter actual gross yield benchmarks to work from; Johnson County lacks that transparency. If you need to build a pro forma with confidence, Anderson or Greene give you more to work with. The reason to choose Johnson over those neighbors comes down to one thing: if local knowledge, a specific property, or a value-add thesis gives you conviction that the appreciation trajectory will hold and that rents are materially stronger than the county-level gap in this dataset implies, the sub-$260,000 entry and normal tax burden make the numbers workable. Without that conviction, the neighboring counties with published rent data and equivalent or better scores are the more defensible underwrite.