Wayne County

Wayne County, Utah sits at a median home price of $438,037 against a cash flow score of zero and a cap rate the data records as zero. No rent figures are provided for Wayne, which itself tells you something about how thin and illiquid this rental market is. With a population of 2,532, this is one of the least populated counties in the dataset, and the affordability index of 32 confirms that purchase prices are elevated relative to what local incomes, anchored at a median of $64,870, can support. The 1.4% year-over-year price appreciation is real but modest, and the overall score of 50 out of 100 with a national percentile rank of 23 places Wayne near the bottom third of counties nationwide. The picture that emerges is a market where acquisition cost is high, rental income is essentially unquantifiable from available data, and the spread between price and income creates a structurally difficult cash flow equation.

This market does not suit a cash flow buyer. A $438,037 purchase with 20% down at 6.85% implies a substantial monthly mortgage obligation, and with no rental income data to underwrite against, any investor projecting returns would be fabricating numbers rather than reading them. The appreciation score of 64 is the one signal that points toward a viable thesis, but that thesis is speculative rather than income-driven. If Wayne appeals to any investor type, it is the patient appreciation buyer or the vacation-rental operator who believes that proximity to southern Utah's public lands and tourism corridors can support short-term rental pricing that long-term lease data simply doesn't capture here. A value-add operator looking for distressed acquisition and forced appreciation through renovation would face the additional headwind of a 2,532-person population base, which limits the buyer pool on the exit and creates concentration risk from day one.

No economic anchor data was provided for Wayne County, so employer-level demand drivers cannot be assessed. What the population figure alone suggests is that this is not a market driven by employment concentration or institutional job growth. Rental demand, to the extent it exists, is likely seasonal or tourism-linked rather than grounded in a stable workforce. That distinction matters enormously for underwriting: job-market-driven rental demand produces consistent monthly collections; tourism-driven demand is lumpy, management-intensive, and sensitive to regulatory shifts around short-term rentals.

On carry costs, Utah's state-average effective property tax rate of 0.63% is flagged as low, and at a $438,037 purchase price that translates to $2,760 in annual taxes. Combined with $832 in estimated annual insurance, the monthly tax and insurance load comes to $299. That is a genuine tailwind relative to higher-tax states, a real line-item benefit that reduces your fixed carry cost and gives you a bit more cushion during vacancy. As always, the 0.63% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual Wayne County or township rates may differ, so pull the county assessor's numbers before closing.

The concentration risk here is significant and the data supports saying so directly. A 2,532-person county with no quantifiable rent market and an affordability index of 32 means your tenant pool is small, your comps are thin, and your liquidity on exit is limited. If you need to sell in a down cycle, you are marketing to a very narrow buyer universe. There is also the implicit regulatory risk that any investor pursuing short-term rentals in a rural tourism corridor carries: municipalities across Utah have been tightening short-term rental ordinances, and a market this small has limited political resistance to restrictive zoning changes.

Compared to the neighboring counties in the data, Wayne looks weaker on every measurable cash flow input. Tooele County carries a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0497 at a $472,857 median, Davis sits at 0.0398 at $545,748, Utah County at 0.0403 at $534,714, and Weber at 0.0384 at $450,369. Wayne has no rent-to-price ratio on record. All four neighbors have quantifiable rental markets, which means an investor can actually underwrite them. Weber County's $450,369 median is comparable to Wayne's $438,037, but Weber has $1,442 in monthly rent data to work with and an overall score of 49 versus Wayne's 50, making it functionally equivalent in score with a far more legible income stream. Choose Wayne over a neighbor only if you have a specific, numbers-backed short-term rental thesis that accounts for seasonality and local regulatory risk, and even then, the thin population base makes this a satellite position in a diversified portfolio rather than a core holding.