Pacific County

Pacific County sits at a gross rent-to-price ratio of 5.42%, which translates to a 3.52% cap rate on standard underwriting assumptions. That gap between gross yield and cap rate tells you the expense load is doing real work here: combined mortgage, operating expenses, taxes, and insurance on a median-priced acquisition at 6.85% interest leaves you at negative $788 per month in cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of -12.03% on a 20% down payment. The county's overall score of 53 out of 100, landing at the 30th percentile nationally and 10th out of 39 Washington counties, reflects a market that is neither a cash-flow engine nor a high-growth appreciation play. Year-over-year home price growth of 0.55% is essentially flat in real terms, and the affordability index of 57 suggests the market is moderately accessible but not cheap enough to create a natural valuation floor that would insulate buyers from further softness.

The investor this market suits least is the pure cash-flow buyer running conventional financing. The numbers make that plain: at a 3.52% cap rate with a 6.85% debt cost, the leverage works against you from day one, and negative $788 monthly cash flow is not a rounding error. The investor most likely to find Pacific County workable is either an all-cash or low-leverage buyer who can live with the thin yield, or someone pursuing a longer-hold appreciation thesis, though the 0.55% annual price growth gives limited support for that thesis right now. A value-add operator could potentially compress that negative cash flow by acquiring below median and forcing rent through renovation, but the small population base of 23,396 means demand depth for repositioned units is limited, and exit liquidity will be thinner than in larger metros.

No economic anchor data was provided for Pacific County, so employment concentration and major employer stability cannot be assessed here. What the population figure does imply is a small, likely coastal or rural market where rental demand draws from a narrow pool. That structural constraint matters when evaluating both vacancy risk and the ability to push rents meaningfully above the current $1,543 median without losing tenants to ownership or adjacent markets.

The combined monthly tax and insurance burden of $339, based on a state-average effective property tax rate of 0.98% and an insurance rate of 0.21%, is a real line item but not an exceptional one. The tax flag is "normal," meaning you are not dealing with the kind of 1.7%-plus state-average rates that demand a separate conversation in your underwrite. That said, the note from Tax Foundation data is worth keeping: this is a state-average effective rate, and actual county or township assessments in Pacific County may differ. Verify the specific parcel-level tax history before closing; in small Washington counties, assessed values can lag market prices by a cycle or two, meaning your first reassessment post-purchase could shift that $339 figure meaningfully.

The primary risks in Pacific County are concentration and scale. A population of 23,396 means your tenant pool, your comparable sales pool, and your exit buyer pool are all shallow. If local employment shifts, a small absolute number of job losses can move vacancy rates significantly. Regulatory risk is not flagged by the data provided, and vacancy or crime statistics are not available here, so those dimensions cannot be scored. What can be said is that small coastal Washington markets can carry elevated insurance replacement-cost risk from weather exposure, which makes the insurance rate assumption worth a hard look from a local underwriter rather than accepting the state-average figure at face value.

Among the neighbors listed, Pacific County's rent-to-price ratio of 5.42% is competitive. Yakima County shows a lower ratio at 4.54% on a nearly identical median price of $345,061, making Yakima the weaker cash-flow option. Grant County comes in at 5.19% with a similar price point of $354,439 and a lower overall score of 50. Franklin County shows a slightly higher ratio of 5.45% at a median of $412,248 and an overall score of 50. Douglas County leads the group on gross yield at 5.73%, though its median price of $476,828 requires meaningfully more capital deployed. Wahkiakum County, which shares a similar overall score of 56, has no rent data provided, limiting direct comparison. If your priority is maximizing gross yield per dollar of purchase price with conventional leverage still in play, Douglas County edges out Pacific on the ratio. If you are working with a tighter acquisition budget and willing to accept marginally negative cash flow, Pacific and Franklin are comparable choices, with Pacific offering a slightly lower price point. Choose Pacific over its neighbors if the specific submarket, property type, or your existing operational footprint in coastal Washington gives you an edge that the county-level medians cannot capture.