Duchesne County

Duchesne County sits at a median home price of $376,136, up 3.96% year-over-year, with an affordability index of 49, meaning it is priced at roughly half the headroom a typical buyer would consider comfortable. The data does not include a cap rate, rent estimate, or cash-on-cash return for this county, which immediately tells you something: this is not a market where the cash-flow math is straightforward or reliably positive at current prices. The appreciation score of 83 out of 100 is the dominant signal here, ranking 6th in Utah out of 28 counties and in the 62nd percentile nationally. If you are underwriting this market expecting your returns to come from day-one income, the numbers as provided do not support that thesis. If you are betting on price trajectory, the 3.96% YoY gain and the high appreciation score at least give you a data-backed reason to look closer.

This is an appreciation-oriented market, not a cash-flow play. The cash-flow score is 0, which is a hard stop for investors who need the rent check to cover carry costs from month one. Value-add operators looking to force equity through renovation may find more to work with, particularly if they can acquire below the $376,136 median and push rents above whatever the current local baseline is, but the data does not provide a rent figure to anchor that underwrite. Serious investors should treat the absence of a published rent-to-price ratio as a flag to do primary research before committing capital. The stability score of 50 and affordability score of 49 suggest a market that is neither deeply liquid nor deeply stressed, but one that lacks the demand density that makes either metric easy to rely on.

The economic context here matters more than in larger markets because Duchesne County has a population of only 19,779. No economic anchors or employer data were provided, so any claim about job base or demand drivers would be speculation. What the population figure alone tells you is that this is a thin market: tenant pools are small, vacancy in a single-family rental can drag on longer than in a metro, and re-leasing timelines will not look like Salt Lake. Investors used to operating in population centers above 100,000 should recalibrate their assumptions about how fast a vacancy gets filled and how much pricing power a landlord has when a unit sits empty.

On carry costs, the tax-and-insurance picture is a genuine tailwind. Using Utah's state-average effective property tax rate of 0.63%, which is flagged as low and is worth noting comes with the honest caveat that actual county and township rates in Duchesne may differ, the annual property tax on a $376,136 purchase works out to roughly $2,370. Insurance adds another $715 annually at the 0.19% rate. Combined, that is $257 per month in tax and insurance, which is one of the lower combined burdens you will find in a western state at this price point. That is a real number that works in your favor on any income and expense model, and it partially offsets the pressure that a 6.85% interest rate puts on monthly cash flow. At that rate, the mortgage alone on a 20% down purchase is a significant line item, and the low tax-and-insurance load is one of the few structural cost advantages this market offers.

The concentration risk in a county of under 20,000 people deserves its own consideration. A single large employer reducing its workforce, a commodity price shift affecting any energy or agricultural sector in the region, or a demographic outflow driven by housing affordability (the index sits at 49) could have outsized effects on rental demand in a market this size. The data does not identify specific industry concentrations, but small-population rural Utah counties in the Uinta Basin area have historically been sensitive to energy sector cycles. If you cannot independently verify what is driving the local economy and who your likely tenants are, the thin population base amplifies the downside of getting that wrong.

Among the neighboring counties provided, Millard County at $334,525 and Daggett County at $337,573 offer lower entry prices at comparable or slightly higher overall scores (66 and 63, respectively). Sevier County, at $322,742, is the only neighbor with a published rent figure ($1,450) and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.054, which translates to a gross yield in the low-to-mid single digits and a more legible cash-flow story than Duchesne provides. Juab County comes in higher at $442,422 with an overall score of 65, offering marginal score improvement at a meaningfully higher price. If your primary objective is income underwriting clarity, Sevier is the neighbor where the numbers are at least visible. If you are specifically drawn to Duchesne's appreciation score of 83, which is the highest in this peer group, and you are comfortable underwriting a market without a published rent baseline, Duchesne merits further due diligence. Choose it over its neighbors when you have a specific value-add angle, local market knowledge of the rental rate environment, and a return model that does not depend on near-term cash flow to justify the hold.