50-State DSCR Property Tax & Insurance Benchmark Table (2026 Edition)

By Maniteja · Investor · Educational analysis

Comparing DSCR by state starts with the costs attached to the property: taxes, insurance and debt service. This 50-state benchmark table holds price, rent and financing constant so you can see how historical expense proxies change coverage. Search a state, adjust the assumptions, and download the national matrix in Excel or CSV.

2026 edition, checked October 30, 2026. The source observations are older: 2024 owner-occupied tax/value medians and 2022 homeowner insurance data. They are screening references, not current landlord quotes, parcel tax rates or lender approvals. A low modeled expense burden doesn't establish that a state is a better investment.

How State-Level Expenses Determine Your National Buying Strategy

Start with a hypothetical $350,000 purchase. A 20% down payment leaves a $280,000 loan. At an illustrative 7.50% fixed rate amortized over 30 years, principal and interest are $1,957.80 a month. The rate is a calculation assumption, not today's offer. Check our dated mortgage benchmark and DSCR rate sources before requesting a lender quote.

With $3,200 monthly supported rent, the residential qualification screen is rent divided by PITIA: principal, interest, taxes, insurance and association charges. At a 1.35x target, the maximum total monthly payment is $2,370.37. That leaves only $412.57 monthly for tax, insurance and any HOA charge. Expensive insurance can use that allowance even in a state with relatively low taxes.

Keep operating coverage separate. Gross scheduled rent minus vacancy and credit loss, plus collectible other income, produces effective gross income, or EGI. Some worksheets call it EGO. Subtract operating expenses to calculate NOI, then divide NOI by annual principal-and-interest debt service. The DSCR loan fundamentals guide explains why residential rent/PITIA and commercial NOI/debt service should never be combined in one unlabeled ratio.

For example, annual rent of $38,400 less 5% vacancy gives $36,480 EGI. Suppose taxes are $4,200, insurance $2,400, management 8% of EGI and repairs $2,000. NOI is $24,961.60. Divide by $23,493.61 annual P&I to get approximately 1.062x operating coverage. Residential rent/PITIA is about 1.276x using those same tax and insurance amounts. Both answers are correct; they answer different questions. Capital replacements and income taxes still sit outside this simplified operating calculation.

Read the Data Before Comparing DSCR by State

The tax column comes from Census ACS 2024 one-year tables B25103 and B25077. We divide each state's median annual owner-occupied real estate tax by its median owner-occupied home value. This is a ratio of two separate medians, not an average effective tax rate, published millage or matched-property calculation. Owner exemptions and assessment practices limit its usefulness for a newly purchased rental. Census source files and documentation identify the survey vintage.

The insurance column is our unweighted mean of available 2022 ZIP-level premiums per policy in Treasury's underlying homeowners insurance dataset. It covers a sample of HO-3/HO-5 homeowner policies, not landlord policies. Flood, residual and surplus markets are excluded. ZIP samples and insurer coverage vary, so it is not a policy-weighted statewide average.

We matched five-digit ZIPs to 2020 Census ZCTA/county relationships. We excluded 89 cross-state ZIP areas rather than allocating their premiums arbitrarily. ZIPs and Census ZCTAs are different geographic concepts. The observation count shows retained ZIP records, not insurance policies. There are 50 state rows; DC and territories are outside this comparison.

No inflation factor turns those historical premiums into a 2026 quote. The workbook preserves source years and links. Census estimates also have sampling uncertainty; the source record retains their margins of error. Use the matrix to identify questions for your assessor, insurance agent and lender, then replace the proxies with documented costs.

Use the modeled state ranking to identify expense assumptions to investigate, then replace them with property-specific evidence before comparing actual acquisitions.

Top 10 Modeled States for Higher DSCR: A Conditional Comparison

The following ten states produce the highest rent/PITIA ratios under the same default $350,000 price, $3,200 rent, 20% down, 7.50% rate and 30-year amortization. This is a ranking of one expense scenario. It doesn't compare achievable rent, neighborhood risk, local demand, insurance availability or appreciation.

The 1.35x threshold is an entered target, not a statutory requirement. Ratios are reported even when they fall below it.

The Five Lowest Modeled Ratios: What to Investigate

These five states have the lowest ratios under the default assumptions. They aren't automatically the toughest places to borrow or the worst places to invest. A different price, rent, local tax bill or insurance quote can reverse the order.

Ask for buyer-specific assessed value, taxing jurisdictions, special assessments and exemption treatment. Insurance comparisons need replacement cost, deductibles, exclusions and separate wind or flood coverage.

Our Texas DSCR guide demonstrates a buyer-specific tax shock. The Florida insurance modeler separates hazard and flood costs. The Ohio and Midwest cash-flow guide adds another constraint: a smaller purchase can pass coverage while falling below a lender's minimum balance. Each addresses a different reason a national ranking may fail at the parcel level.

Interactive 50-State Searchable and Sortable Data Table

Enter the same deal assumptions for all states, then calculate. Search by state name or abbreviation. Choose alphabetical order or sort by modeled coverage, tax proxy or insurance proxy. The initial table is rendered in the article so its historical figures remain readable if scripts are unavailable.

The scenario assumes no HOA charge and fully amortizing fixed-rate debt. The insurance proxy stays a historical dollar input rather than scaling with purchase price; insurance depends on replacement cost and coverage, which aren't supplied by home price alone. The tax and insurance shock fields apply your chosen percentage changes. Neither is a forecast.

Try a 20% tax increase and a 40% insurance increase. On a property with $4,200 annual taxes and $2,400 insurance, that adds $1,800 a year, or $150 monthly. A $2,507.80 baseline PITIA becomes $2,657.80. At $3,200 rent, residential coverage drops from about 1.276x to 1.204x. Restoring a 1.35x target requires about $3,588.03 monthly supported rent, not merely a more optimistic spreadsheet.

For an actual offer, use the homepage DSCR calculator with the parcel's current estimates. Then run the expense sensitivity stress test to check how much room remains. A high initial ratio is more useful when it survives reasonable expenses and vacancy.

State-by-State Prepayment Penalty Statutory Limits: What Needs Legal Review

This matrix deliberately doesn't attach a blanket legal limit to each state. Prepayment treatment can depend on business purpose, borrower type, occupancy, property classification, loan size, lender status and governing documents. A consumer mortgage restriction cannot safely be copied into every LLC rental transaction.

Ask counsel to identify the applicable rule and its effective date for the exact loan. Ask the lender for the proposed note, rider and payoff calculation. Confirm whether a restriction applies to voluntary sale, refinance, partial principal payment, casualty proceeds and a portfolio release. Those events can receive different treatment.

Record transaction facts, controlling authority, contract language and estimated payoff. A 5-4-3-2-1 schedule, yield maintenance and a partial-release premium are different mechanisms.

The prepayment penalty explanation gives calculation examples. It doesn't replace state-specific advice. Neither a 1.25x coverage target nor an investor's 1.35x cushion is a statutory prepayment threshold.

Follow the statewide comparison with property-specific checks: the Georgia DSCR guide covers rental underwriting questions, while the North and South Carolina guide separates tax classification and coastal insurance considerations.

Downloadable Excel and CSV National Underwriting Matrix

Download Excel benchmark matrix (.xlsx) Use “Export current table CSV” in the tool for your filtered scenario.

Use Excel when you want recalculating formulas. Open the workbook, read the methodology sheet and change the blue scenario inputs. The matrix calculates loan amount, P&I, modeled tax and insurance, residential coverage, rent needed at the target, and any rent shortfall. Preserve an untouched copy before replacing historical source cells with actual property figures.

Use CSV for a portable snapshot. The browser export includes the current filtered rows, source vintages and current assumptions. Excel can open it, but CSV doesn't preserve formulas, formatting or multiple worksheets. Recalculate in the online tool or use the XLSX workbook when assumptions change.

Keep supported rent, buyer-specific taxes, current insurance quotes, HOA documents and lender terms beside the export. Those property-level records support the actual decision.

Rank comparable assumptions, not just states: When comparing two locations, hold loan terms and income assumptions constant, then show the dollar change attributable to taxes and insurance. After that, replace the shared assumptions with property-specific evidence. This separates a genuine expense difference from a ranking driven by different prices, rent estimates or financing inputs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Prepared by Maniteja, investor. Educational scenarios; no investment result, legal opinion or loan approval is implied.