Winnebago County

Winnebago County posts a gross rent-to-price ratio of 5.04% and a modeled cap rate of 3.28%, which puts it squarely in appreciation territory rather than cash-flow territory. At a $304,461 median purchase price with a 20% down, the model projects negative $765 per month in cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of -13.11% at a 6.85% rate. That is not a rounding error or an edge case, it is the baseline for a market-rate acquisition financed at current rates. The 4.64% year-over-year price appreciation is real and meaningful, and the affordability index of 65 suggests the market is not wildly overvalued, but the income side simply does not keep pace with the carry costs at today's debt pricing. An investor who needs their property to service itself from day one should know that going in.

The numbers point clearly toward an appreciation buyer or a patient long-term holder who can either bring significant additional capital to compress leverage, or who has a specific value-add angle to close the rent-to-cost gap. The cash-flow score of 46 out of 100 and the cash-on-cash figure are not borderline, they reflect a market where rents at $1,278 median have not scaled with prices that have moved to $304,000-plus. An appreciation buyer gets a market ranked 52nd percentile nationally and 42nd out of 72 Wisconsin counties, which is middling in absolute terms but the appreciation score of 85 is the standout metric here. If your thesis is price growth with a 7-to-10-year hold and you can absorb negative carry or offset it with added value, Winnebago makes a case. A pure cash-flow operator running standard market rents against a leveraged acquisition at current rates will not make this work without a creative structure.

The tax and insurance picture is a real underwriting consideration and deserves its own line on your model. Wisconsin's state-average effective property tax rate of 1.85% is high, and at that rate the annual tax bill on a $304,461 asset comes to approximately $5,633. Combined with $700 in estimated annual insurance, the monthly tax and insurance load is $528. That single figure, $528 per month, against a median rent of $1,278, means roughly 41% of gross rent is consumed by just those two line items before you touch debt service or maintenance. The 1.85% is a state-average estimate per Tax Foundation 2024 data, and actual county and township rates in Winnebago may differ, so pull the specific mill rate for any parcel you are underwriting. But the directional message is clear: Wisconsin's tax burden is a structural headwind for cash flow here, not a minor footnote.

The specific risks worth flagging from this data set are concentration and the cash-flow sensitivity to rate environment. At a cap rate of 3.28% and a 6.85% financing cost, the negative leverage spread is roughly 357 basis points. Any upward rate movement deepens the hole; any meaningful vacancy event compounds it quickly given there is no cushion in the base case. The stability score of 50 does not indicate a distressed or rapidly declining market, but it does not signal a demand environment insulated from cyclical softness either. A 171,197-person county is mid-sized, large enough to have liquidity and diverse rental demand, but not so large that a single-employer contraction would fail to register in occupancy.

Compared to its neighbors, Winnebago's rent-to-price ratio of 5.04% is the highest in the peer group. Dodge County sits at 4.54%, Portage at 4.65%, Outagamie at 4.64%, Marathon at 4.27%, and Fond du Lac at 4.41%. Winnebago generates the most rental income per dollar of asset value of any county in this comparison, which is why it scores at or above most neighbors on the overall scale despite the negative cash-flow projection at current leverage. Marathon County at a $257,325 median price offers lower absolute entry cost and a matched overall score of 61, but its rent of $916 median is materially lower, and the rent-to-price ratio of 4.27% is worse than Winnebago's. Outagamie scores 61 and has a slightly higher price at $325,896 with rent of $1,259, producing a lower ratio and worse income coverage. If you are choosing within this peer set and your priority is income yield relative to acquisition cost, Winnebago is the clearest pick. If your priority is lower nominal entry price and you are willing to accept a softer rent market, Marathon offers that trade-off. Winnebago makes the most sense for an investor who wants the best rent-to-price dynamics in the Wisconsin mid-market and is building a hold-and-appreciate thesis with realistic expectations about negative carry in the near term.