Bosque County

Bosque County sits at a median home price of $242,716 with a 1.82% year-over-year price decline, an affordability index of 78, and an appreciation score of 41 out of 100. The cap rate and cash-on-cash return fields both return zero, which tells you something important: at current price and rent levels, the numbers do not close into positive cash flow territory under standard underwriting. The county ranks 500th out of 1,000 nationally (36th percentile) and 98th out of 243 Texas counties, a middling position that reflects a market with decent affordability on paper but no obvious edge on either the income or appreciation side of the ledger.

Given the cash flow score of zero and an appreciation score of 41, Bosque does not cleanly serve either camp. A pure cash-flow buyer will find no modeled spread here, and an appreciation buyer looking at a market that just shed 1.82% in price has to make a conviction call that the decline is transient rather than directional. The affordability index of 78 is the one legitimate bright spot: at $242,716, entry prices are low enough that a value-add operator buying distressed or underimproved inventory at a meaningful discount to median could potentially manufacture yield that the market does not hand over at full price. That is a narrower, more operationally demanding thesis than most buy-and-hold investors want to execute, and it requires local deal sourcing rather than listed MLS purchases.

No economic anchor data was provided for Bosque County, so the employment and rental-demand picture cannot be assessed from this data set. With a population of 18,404, the county is a small rural market. Small population bases carry inherent concentration risk: when a county has fewer residents than many urban zip codes, the tenant pool is thin, vacancy can spike on a single large employer contraction, and days-on-market for rentals can stretch in ways that aggregate county statistics never capture. Investors should independently verify the primary employment drivers and rental demand depth before committing capital.

The carry costs deserve serious attention. At a state-average effective property tax rate of 1.80%, flagged as high, Texas's tax burden is a real line item on any underwrite. On a $242,716 purchase the modeled annual property tax runs $4,369 and annual insurance runs $1,214, combining to $465 per month in tax and insurance alone before a single dollar of mortgage, maintenance, or management expense is counted. At a 6.85% interest rate on a 20% down loan, debt service on the remaining $194,173 adds another roughly $1,275 per month, putting the pre-vacancy, pre-maintenance break-even rent somewhere above $1,740 before any cash flow. The 1.80% figure is a state-average estimate per Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual Bosque County or township rates may differ, but the direction is clear: Texas's property tax structure is one of the primary reasons this market does not pencil on cash flow at median prices.

The neighbor comparison surfaces a range of alternatives, all carrying the same overall score of 54 to 55. Duval County at a median of $75,098 is dramatically cheaper, offering a very different entry-point thesis, though that price level suggests a distressed or illiquid market with its own risks. Karnes ($199,873), De Witt ($212,252), and Uvalde ($192,914) all come in below Bosque's median while matching or equaling its overall score, meaning an investor can access similar market quality at 80 to 87 cents on the dollar compared to Bosque. Washington County at $373,954 and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0588 (5.88 gross yield annualized) is the one neighbor with visible rent data, and at that ratio it likely faces the same or worse cash-flow math at a much higher entry price. The case for choosing Bosque over Karnes, De Witt, or Uvalde would rest on a specific local knowledge advantage, a particular asset type, or a value-add opportunity the data does not surface. Without that edge, the three lower-priced neighbors with equivalent scores offer more margin for underwriting error at smaller absolute capital commitments.