Bristol County

Bristol County comes in at a 2.92% cap rate with a gross rent-to-price ratio of 0.00449, which places it firmly in appreciation territory rather than cash-flow territory. At a $539,520 median price and $2,017 median rent, the math is unforgiving at today's financing costs: running a 20% down payment through a 6.85% mortgage produces a $2,828 monthly payment, and after adding estimated operating expenses of $706 per month, the model spits out negative $1,517 in monthly cash flow and a cash-on-cash return of -14.67%. That is not a rounding error; it is a structural gap between what the market charges for assets and what tenants are willing to pay. The 2.69% year-over-year home price appreciation is real but modest, not nearly fast enough on its own to paper over the carry loss unless you have a multi-year hold thesis and either strong rent growth or meaningful forced appreciation through improvements.

The appreciation score of 77 out of 100 is the clearest signal about who this market is built for. A pure cash-flow buyer will struggle to find a deal that pencils here without a significant discount to the median, a creative financing structure, or a multi-unit property that pushes rents meaningfully above the $2,017 median. A long-horizon appreciation buyer who can fund the carry from other income, or who is using Bristol as part of a larger portfolio where other properties generate the cash flow, has a more defensible case. The value-add operator has the most interesting angle: if you can acquire below median and reposition a two- or three-family property to rents above the market average, you narrow the gap, though the 2.92% entry cap still demands a clean renovation budget and a fast lease-up to avoid compounding the monthly shortfall.

The $670 per month combined tax and insurance figure, derived from a 1.23% state-average effective property tax rate and a 0.26% insurance rate, is a meaningful line item. At 1.23%, the rate falls in the normal range and does not rise to the level of a serious underwriting red flag on its own, but with mortgage and operating expenses already creating a large negative cash flow, every line item matters. That $670 lands inside the $706 estimated expense figure and represents approximately a third of your total monthly cost stack above the mortgage. Worth noting: the 1.23% figure is a state-average estimate from Tax Foundation 2024, and actual rates within Bristol County's municipalities can vary, so pull the specific assessor rate for any target property before finalizing your underwrite.

The affordability index of 33 and median household income of $80,628 provide useful context for rental demand. When residents can only afford 33% of what it costs to own, the ownership path is closed for a large share of the population, which creates structural rental demand. That dynamic supports occupancy and gives landlords some pricing power over time, but it also means the tenant pool is income-constrained, which limits how aggressively you can push rents in any given year. A population of 576,699 is large enough to support a liquid rental market without the concentration risk you see in smaller counties, but Bristol is not a single-employer story.

Compared to its neighbors, Bristol sits in a middle position that is neither the cheapest entry point nor the priciest. Franklin County offers the most attractive rent-to-price ratio at 0.0604 and a $355,663 median price, with an overall score of 54 versus Bristol's 50. Worcester County is also more compelling on the cash-flow math, with a 0.0523 rent-to-price ratio, a lower median price of $481,357, and rents of $2,096 that exceed Bristol's despite the lower asset price. Both Franklin and Worcester outperform Bristol on the metrics that matter to income-focused buyers. On the appreciation and stability side, Bristol scores higher than Franklin and roughly comparable to Worcester. If your thesis is preservation of capital in a denser, more established suburban market with proximity to the Boston metro, Bristol makes more sense than Franklin. If you are optimizing for cash-flow at entry, Worcester is the stronger choice at current pricing. Middlesex, Essex, and Norfolk all carry higher price tags and worse or similar rent-to-price ratios, which means Bristol is already more affordable than the core Boston-adjacent counties while offering comparable appreciation dynamics, but none of the neighboring options solve the fundamental Massachusetts problem: this is a low-yield, appreciation-oriented state, and Bristol County is a representative example of that trade-off.