Green County

Green County sits at a median home price of $330,219, up 5.96% year-over-year, with an affordability index of 59 out of 100. The data does not include a rent estimate or gross rent figure, which means cap rate and cash-on-cash return are listed at zero in the model, not because the market yields nothing, but because the inputs needed to calculate them aren't present here. What the scoring makes clear is where this county lands on the spectrum: an appreciation score of 89 paired with a cash flow score of 0 tells you exactly what kind of market this is. Green County is priced for growth, not for monthly yield. An investor underwriting to day-one cash flow will struggle here. An investor buying for long-term appreciation in a market that has already moved nearly 6% in a year has a clearer thesis.

The appreciation buyer is the natural fit. An 89 appreciation score puts Green County near the top of its peer group in Wisconsin, ranking 23rd out of 72 counties statewide and landing in the 77th percentile nationally across the 1,000-county sample. That kind of positioning, combined with a 5.96% price gain, suggests the market is being bid up by buyers who expect continued appreciation rather than renters underwriting it with yield. For a buy-and-hold investor with a longer time horizon, that dynamic works if you're comfortable funding carry costs out of pocket or at a breakeven on rent while equity builds. A value-add operator might find opportunities if distressed properties trade at a discount to the $330,219 median, but the underlying market won't bail you out with rent-driven returns, so the value-add math has to stand on its own execution, not on market tailwinds from cap rate compression.

The data does not include economic anchor or employer information for Green County, so the job-base and rental demand picture can't be quantified here. What the population figure of 37,066 does establish is that this is a small county, and small-county rental markets carry concentration risk by definition. A thin renter pool means that vacancy swings hit harder than they would in a metro with 300,000 residents, and that absorption of new units is slower. Investors accustomed to larger markets should calibrate their vacancy assumptions accordingly, even though no vacancy rate is provided in this data set.

Carry costs are a real underwriting consideration here. At a state-average effective property tax rate of 1.85%, Wisconsin's burden is high enough to deserve its own line on your underwrite, and the data flags it as such. On a $330,219 purchase, that translates to $6,109 in estimated annual property taxes. Add $760 in annual insurance at the 0.23% rate, and you're looking at $572 per month in combined tax and insurance before you touch mortgage principal, interest, maintenance, or management. At a 6.85% interest rate on an 80% LTV loan, the mortgage alone adds substantially to that figure. With a cash flow score of zero and no rent estimate in the model, the monthly carry math is working against the cash-flow buyer from multiple directions. Be clear-eyed: this property demands either strong rents that the data can't confirm or a patient appreciation strategy where monthly losses are accepted as a cost of holding a position. One honest caveat applies throughout: the 1.85% rate is a state-average estimate from the Tax Foundation's 2024 data, and actual county and township rates in Green County may differ meaningfully.

Compared to the neighboring counties in the data, Green County is the most expensive by median price at $330,219, sitting above Kenosha County at $311,505, Pepin at $267,147, Vernon at $261,888, Juneau at $255,309, and Langlade at $208,908. Kenosha is the only neighbor with rent data, showing a median rent of $1,624.61 and a rent-to-price ratio of 0.0626, which is a materially better cash-flow setup than Green County's unquantified position at a higher price point. If cash flow is the priority, Kenosha's numbers are more actionable and it carries a comparable overall score of 67 versus Green's 68. The case for choosing Green over its neighbors rests entirely on its appreciation score of 89, which none of the listed neighbors match, and on the 5.96% price growth rate. If you're making an appreciation bet and you want to stay in Wisconsin, Green County makes the argument for itself on those two numbers. If you need the rent to carry the asset from day one, the neighbors, particularly Kenosha and the lower-priced options in Langlade and Juneau, are worth running the full underwrite first.