Brown County

Brown County, Wisconsin, home to Green Bay and a population of 268,393, sits firmly in appreciation territory rather than cash-flow territory. The gross rent-to-price ratio is 0.038, which translates to a 2.47% cap rate on a $355,212 median purchase price. Running the numbers at a 6.85% interest rate on an 80% LTV mortgage produces a monthly payment of $1,862 against $1,125 in median rent and $394 in estimated expenses, yielding a projected cash flow of negative $1,131 per month and a cash-on-cash return of -16.61%. That is not a rounding error; it is the arithmetic cost of chasing appreciation in a market where rent levels have not kept pace with home prices. Home values did grow 4.75% year-over-year, and the appreciation score of 85 out of 100 confirms that price momentum is real, but the cash-flow score of 27 makes the tradeoff explicit.

This market suits one profile: a buyer willing to accept negative monthly carry in exchange for price appreciation, with sufficient liquidity to fund the shortfall without distress. A pure cash-flow investor should stop here. At a 2.47% cap rate, there is no plausible path to positive leverage at current financing costs, and the cash-on-cash return of -16.61% means you are writing a check every month, not collecting one. A value-add operator could theoretically compress the loss by improving a submarket property and raising rents, but the median rent of $1,125 is a ceiling signal, not a floor, and forcing rents meaningfully above market in a mid-sized Midwest city is a crowded and uncertain strategy. The appreciation buyer has the cleanest case: 4.75% annual price growth on a $355,212 asset generates roughly $16,900 in equity per year, which partly offsets the annual cash outflow, but only if price appreciation continues at its recent pace and the investor has the balance sheet to carry the gap.

Brown County's long-term rental demand is anchored by Green Bay's status as a mid-sized regional employment center. The area supports a mix of manufacturing, healthcare, and service-sector employment that provides a degree of job stability for working-class and middle-income renters. That employer base sustains consistent occupancy for workforce housing, which is the segment most likely to be acquired at or near the $355,000 median, but it also constrains rent growth, since wage levels in those sectors put a practical ceiling on what tenants can pay. The stability score of 50 reflects a market that is neither fragile nor particularly dynamic, occupancy is likely steady but rental income is unlikely to surge.

Property taxes in Wisconsin deserve serious attention in any underwrite. The state-average effective rate applied here is 1.85%, which the data flags as high, and at that rate the annual tax burden on a $355,212 property is $6,571. Combined with $817 in estimated insurance, monthly tax and insurance runs $616, well over half of total gross rent. That single line item, before mortgage principal and interest, debt service, management, maintenance, or vacancy, consumes 55 cents of every dollar of rent collected. The 1.85% is a state-average estimate per Tax Foundation 2024 data, and the note in the data is worth taking seriously: actual county and township rates in Brown County may differ, and Wisconsin's local levy structure means the realized rate on a specific parcel could be higher or lower. Do not underwrite this market without pulling the actual tax bill on any target property. At these levels, even modest variance in the tax rate has material cash-flow consequences.

The primary risk here is structural rather than cyclical. Brown County's affordability index of 54 and its ranking at the 30th national percentile and 60th out of 72 Wisconsin counties signal that this is not a market where the numbers are temporarily out of alignment waiting to snap back; the rent-to-price ratio of 0.038 reflects a genuine disconnect between what investors must pay to acquire assets and what the local tenant base can support. There is no vacancy or demographic data provided here to quantify those risks precisely, but a market where cash-on-cash return is -16.61% at median has very little room for additional headwinds, whether from rising vacancies, deferred maintenance, or any softening in appreciation.

Compared to the neighboring counties in this data, Brown's case for a cash-flow buyer weakens further when measured against La Crosse and Eau Claire. La Crosse County offers a rent-to-price ratio of 0.049 against a median home price of $314,821, a combination that meaningfully improves the leverage math. Eau Claire County runs a 0.045 ratio at $309,357, also materially better than Brown's 0.038. Both neighboring counties score 54 overall versus Brown's 53, so the improvement in cash-flow potential comes at minimal cost to the overall quality score. Waukesha County is pricier at $475,410 but delivers a higher rent of $1,594 and a 0.040 ratio, still tighter than Brown but with a stronger absolute income stream. Door County, at $436,515 with no rental data provided, is likely a short-term or seasonal market and not comparable on a buy-and-hold basis. An investor whose primary goal is cash flow or break-even carry should look at La Crosse or Eau Claire before underwriting Brown. The case for choosing Brown specifically is a conviction call on continued Green Bay-area price appreciation, and that thesis needs to be underwritten explicitly rather than assumed.