Investing in Yazoo City, MS — Market Analysis
Yazoo City is one of the lower-basis entry points in Mississippi, with a median home price around $115,000. Yazoo City is a smaller Mississippi market. Entry prices are low and gross rent-to-price ratios are among the best in the state, but appraisers have fewer rent comps to work with, and a single vacancy is a much larger share of annual income than it would be in a metro.
Buying a rental property in Yazoo City on a DSCR loan means putting a minimum of $23,000 down (20% of purchase price), leaving a loan amount of $92,000 at 80% LTV. At current DSCR investor pricing near 7.50%, principal and interest on that loan runs about $643 per month. Add Yazoo County property taxes of roughly $76/month and landlord insurance of about $46/month, and your all-in PITIA lands near $765/month. That PITIA figure — not the P&I — is what the lender divides your rent into.
A long-term lease in Yazoo City should generate roughly $1,075/month in gross rent. Against a PITIA of $765, that produces an estimated DSCR ratio of 1.41x. That clears the 1.0 minimum comfortably and puts you in the strongest DSCR pricing tier most lenders offer, which usually means a rate improvement of 0.25%–0.50% versus a break-even deal.
Two Mississippi-specific items to build into your model: Mississippi assesses single-family rental property in Class II at 15% of true value with no homestead credit available to investors, and coastal Hancock, Harrison and Jackson county wind premiums are frequently the largest single line in the pro forma — quote insurance before you quote the loan. In Yazoo City specifically, effective property tax on investment property runs around 0.79% of value annually — about $909 a year at the median price — and landlord insurance near $552 a year.
On return metrics, Yazoo City pencils to an estimated cap rate of 6.95% using a 62% NOI margin, and a gross rent multiplier of 8.9. Monthly cash flow on a long-term lease at 20% down is estimated at $310 positive. A cash-flowing file at 20% down is the exception in most markets right now, and it gives you room to absorb a rate that doesn't come down.

