Rental Property in Mississippi: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Mississippi looks, on the surface, like the easiest rental math in the South. The statewide median home price is $284,900, the effective property tax rate is a middling 0.65%, and the average homeowners premium at $300,000 of dwelling coverage is $3,218 — less than half what Louisiana pays and about 38% of Florida's.

Two things complicate that picture, and both of them are geography.

The first is that Mississippi's coastal counties are a genuinely different insurance market from the rest of the state — Harrison County averages $7,244, or 2.25 times the statewide figure. The second is more specific and worse: Mississippi's named-storm deductible applies per occurrence, not once per hurricane season. Florida and Louisiana both cap a policyholder at one storm deductible per year. A bill to do the same thing here, HB 1479, died in committee on February 4, 2025. So on the Gulf Coast, two landfalls in one season means two deductibles — $12,000 on a $300,000 dwelling limit at 2%, which Section 3 shows is 117% of a full year's net operating income on this article's example.

A note before you start: this is general educational information about how rental property arithmetic works in Mississippi. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation about any property. Mississippi insurance is priced per structure and per county — construction, roof age, elevation, and distance to open water move it enormously — and property tax is administered county by county at rates that vary more here than the statewide average suggests. Talk to a Mississippi CPA about tax treatment, a licensed Mississippi insurance agent about a real quote, and a Mississippi attorney about anything contractual.

1. What a rental costs to buy here

The Mississippi statewide median home price is $284,900.

Mississippi has no state transfer tax. The transferTax field reads hasTransferTax: false, and there is no mortgage recording tax, no documentary stamp on the note, and no intangible tax. Recording fees are set by the chancery clerk and are small.

Mississippi is an attorney closing state. Expect an attorney's fee rather than only a title company's.

Here is the part that surprises people, and it is the one place Mississippi is more expensive than its neighbors: closing costs run 4% to 6% in our data, against the 2% to 5% range that Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky and South Carolina all post. This article uses the 5% midpoint, which is $14,245 on the median house — roughly $5,100 more than the 3.5% a Louisiana buyer would model on a similar price.

On the $284,900 statewide median at 25% down:

• Down payment: $284,900 x 0.25 = $71,225
• Loan amount: $213,675
• Closing costs: $284,900 x 5% = $14,245
• Transfer tax: $0
• Total cash in: $85,470

That is a real number to sit with. Mississippi's median house costs 9.5% less than Arkansas's and $24,000 more than Louisiana's, but the higher closing-cost band means the cash to get in is comparable to markets with meaningfully higher prices. Get a real closing cost estimate before you assume the cheap-state discount applies to the cash requirement.

On price growth, Mississippi's most recent published appreciation figure is +2.09% a year — about $5,954 on this house. That is the healthiest appreciation figure among the Gulf states in this data, and it happens to be within striking distance of the annual cash loss Section 3 computes. It does not cover it, and appreciation is not cash, but it is not the near-zero figure Oklahoma posts either.

The homestead exemption you will not get

Mississippi's homestead exemption reduces ad-valorem tax on an owner-occupied primary residence by exempting the first $7,500 of assessed value, capped at $300 of actual tax dollars, whichever is less. It requires filing with the county tax assessor.

Two honest caveats. First, that figure comes from a secondary source — the Mississippi Department of Revenue's own site was unreachable during our research, so confirm the current amount with your county tax assessor. Second, and more relevant here: a rental gets none of it, because the exemption requires owner occupancy. At a $300 cap the exemption is modest enough that this matters far less in Mississippi than in Louisiana or Florida, where the equivalent exemption is worth hundreds or thousands. But it still means the tax figure on an owner-occupied listing is understated for your purposes. Compute the tax from the purchase price at the county's full rate.

2. The two expenses that decide whether it works

Property tax: a wider range than the headline

Mississippi's statewide effective property tax rate is recorded here as 0.65%, and this is a case where sources genuinely disagree and you should know it:

• Tax Foundation: 0.58%
• SmartAsset: 0.65%
• WalletHub: 0.72% (ranking Mississippi 19th of 50, at roughly $2,381 a year on a $332,700 home)

The spread is 0.58% to 0.72% — about a quarter of the range in relative terms, and worth roughly $399 a year on the median house between the ends. This article uses the middle figure. On the $284,900 example: $284,900 x 0.65% = $1,851.85 a year, or $154.32 a month.

The county-level spread is far larger and runs in the direction most people do not expect. Hinds County — Jackson, the state capital — has an effective rate of 1.33%, more than double the statewide figure and higher than Texas-adjacent territory. Harrison County, on the coast, is 0.84%. Section 5 works through what that does.

Insurance: cheap statewide, expensive where the water is

The reference figure is $3,218 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage with a $1,000 typical all-perils deductible.

Sources disagree here too. NerdWallet's figure at a larger $400,000 dwelling limit is $4,445; MoneyGeek reads $5,161. Since those are different coverage levels, they are not strictly contradictory — but the practical takeaway is that credible Mississippi averages land anywhere from roughly $3,200 to $5,200 depending on the dwelling limit and the sample, and a statewide average is a poor substitute for a quote in a state with a coast.

At $3,218, the premium is $268.17 a month — 1.74 times the property tax bill and 15.32% of the $21,000 of gross rent in Section 3's example. It is 35.4% of every operating expense combined.

Take the identical $284,900 house at the identical rent and tax rate, and change only the premium:

Insurance alone is worth 1.42 percentage points of cap rate across that range and $335.50 a month of cash flow. For comparison, Section 3 shows a full percentage point of mortgage rate is worth about $1,722 a year, or $143 a month. The insurance spread inside Mississippi is worth roughly two and a third points of rate.

Mississippi's premium trend is +2% year over year, which is mild by Gulf standards.

A rental is not insured on a homeowners form. You need a landlord policy — a dwelling fire form with loss-of-rents coverage — priced for the specific address.

The named storm deductible, and the one thing that makes Mississippi different

Mississippi is one of 19 states plus DC that use hurricane or named-storm deductibles, and on the Gulf Coast a separate named-storm deductible is the norm rather than an option.

Mississippi Insurance Department regulation — 19 Miss. Code R. Part 1 Chapter 41, "Named Storm Deductible and Hurricane Deductible" — does not force insurers to use one, but it sets the rules when they do:

• The deductible must be expressed as a percentage of the insured value, not a flat dollar amount.
• The insurer must file and use approved uniform policy language.
• The insurer must offer a buy-back provision letting the homeowner buy the percentage deductible back down for extra premium. This is a lever you have and most buyers do not know exists — ask for the buy-back quote.

The trigger is worth understanding precisely, because it is state-wide rather than damage-location-based. It starts when the National Hurricane Center issues a watch or warning for Mississippi and ends 24 hours after the last such warning for any part of the state is terminated. Your house being 80 miles from the damage does not put you outside the trigger window.

Typical percentages run 1% to 5% of Coverage A. 2% is the common selection and is the maximum most mortgage programs will accept — Mississippi's Veterans Home Purchase Board caps required deductibles at 2%, allowing 5% only in limited circumstances. The Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association offers a 2% named-storm deductible on dwelling and mobile-home risks.

On a $300,000 dwelling limit:

• 1% = $3,000
• 2% = $6,000
• 5% = $15,000

Mississippi construction runs about $200 per square foot to rebuild, so a 1,500 square foot house has a replacement cost near $300,000 — which is why the $300,000 reference limit is a reasonable anchor for a median Mississippi house rather than an abstraction.

Section 3 works out that this rental produces $10,218.15 of net operating income in a good year:

• A 1% deductible ($3,000) is 29.4% of a full year's NOI
• A 2% deductible ($6,000) is 58.7% of NOI
• A 5% deductible ($15,000) is 146.8% of NOI — 1.47 years

And now the part Florida landlords do not have to worry about

In Florida and Louisiana, a policyholder is subject to one hurricane or named-storm deductible per calendar year or per season, no matter how many storms make landfall. That is statutory in both states.

Mississippi has no such rule. HB 1479 in the 2025 Regular Session would have required these deductibles to apply once per calendar year rather than per storm, and would have mandated a signed disclosure form. It died in committee on February 4, 2025. Per-occurrence application remains the default.

Run that through the arithmetic. Two named storms making landfall in one season, each doing damage, at a 2% deductible on a $300,000 limit:

• 2 x $6,000 = $12,000
• That is 117.4% of this property's entire annual net operating income — more than the property earns in a year, in one season.
• At 5% it is $30,000, or 2.94 years of NOI.

You cannot pass any of it to a tenant. It is not a lease obligation and it is not billable. Meanwhile the property is likely uninhabitable, so rent stops at the same moment the deductible comes due — which is exactly what loss-of-rents coverage exists for, and exactly why you should confirm you have it and how many months it pays.

For a landlord this is not a cost line, it is a reserve-sizing rule. In Mississippi, size the reserve against two deductibles, not one.

Two more Mississippi mechanics

Roof settlement. No Mississippi statute or regulation mandates a roof settlement basis, and Mississippi has no matching regulation and no reported matching caselaw — so whether an insurer must replace undamaged adjacent shingles turns entirely on the policy wording. Roof age and the attached endorsement decide the payout. Replacement cost is standard on newer roofs; carriers writing the coastal and tornado-exposed counties commonly move roofs past roughly 15 years to actual cash value or to a roof payment schedule paying a declining percentage by age. A separate wind/hail deductible sits on top of that in much of the state.

Nationally, in March 2026 the Federal Housing Finance Agency relaxed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac requirements so ACV roof coverage can satisfy a lender rather than replacement cost being required.

Mitigation money exists again, and its status is easy to get wrong. Mississippi's program is Strengthen Mississippi Homes, run by the Mississippi Insurance Department. The older version had been paused and was not accepting interest forms. The legislature re-established it in 2026 through Senate Bill 2409, the Strengthen Mississippi Homes Act, effective July 1, 2026, paying lottery-awarded grants of up to $10,000 for retrofits meeting or exceeding the IBHS FORTIFIED Roof standard, at roughly 1,500 homeowners a year. Insurers are required to notify policyholders about available FORTIFIED and building-code discounts, which run in the high teens to about 20% when a home qualifies.

On a Harrison County premium of $7,244, a 20% discount is $1,449 a year — which is worth more than a full point of mortgage rate on this loan.

Flood is separate, always. No property policy anywhere in the United States covers flood. On the Mississippi coast this is not a technicality: wind damage is a named-storm claim, storm surge and rising water are a flood claim, one storm routinely does both, and holding only one leaves half the loss uncovered.

3. A full worked example

The property. A single-family house at the Mississippi statewide median of $284,900.

The rent — read this carefully. This site does not carry rent data. The $1,750 a month used below is an assumption chosen to be plausible for a house at that price. It is not a market observation. Pull three to five real comparable listings for the specific neighborhood and substitute the actual number.

The other assumptions:

• Vacancy: 8% of gross rent (roughly one month of turnover a year)
• Property management: 10% of collected rent
• Repairs and maintenance: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Capital reserve: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Financing: 25% down, 30-year fixed at 7.00% — the rate is an assumption, not a quote
• No HOA

Step 1 — income

• Gross scheduled rent: $1,750 x 12 = $21,000
• Vacancy loss: $21,000 x 8% = $1,680
• Effective gross income: $21,000 - $1,680 = $19,320

Step 2 — operating expenses

Management is charged on rent actually collected, not scheduled rent:

• Management: $19,320 x 10% = $1,932
• Property tax: $284,900 x 0.65% = $1,851.85
• Insurance: $3,218
• Maintenance: $21,000 x 5% = $1,050
• Capital reserve: $21,000 x 5% = $1,050
• Total operating expenses: $9,101.85

Expense ratio: $9,101.85 / $19,320 = 47.11% of collected rent — comfortably inside the 35% to 55% band most rentals land in. This is the healthiest expense ratio of the seven Southern states in this series, and it is entirely because the insurance line is small.

Step 3 — net operating income and cap rate

• NOI = $19,320 - $9,101.85 = $10,218.15
• Cap rate = $10,218.15 / $284,900 = 3.59%

The mortgage is deliberately absent from that figure. Cap rate exists to compare properties independently of how they are financed; putting debt service into it is the most common error in this exercise, and it makes two identical houses look like different investments because one buyer put more down.

Step 4 — debt service and cash flow

Loan: $284,900 x 75% = $213,675. At 7.00% over 30 years, principal and interest is $1,421.59 a month, or $17,059.08 a year.

• Annual cash flow = $10,218.15 - $17,059.08 = -$6,840.93
• Monthly cash flow = -$570.08
• Debt service coverage ratio = $10,218.15 / $17,059.08 = 0.60

Step 5 — cash-on-cash return

• Cash invested: $85,470 (Section 1)
• Cash-on-cash = -$6,840.93 / $85,470 = -8.00%

Rate sensitivity, since 7.00% was an assumption

• At 6.50%: P&I $1,350.57/mo, annual cash flow -$5,988.69
• At 7.00%: P&I $1,421.59/mo, annual cash flow -$6,840.93
• At 7.50%: P&I $1,494.05/mo, annual cash flow -$7,710.45

A full point of rate is worth about $1,722 a year.

The simplest version of the same finding

Add up the three bills a lender escrows:

• Principal and interest: $1,421.59
• Property tax: $1,851.85 / 12 = $154.32
• Insurance: $3,218 / 12 = $268.17
• Total: $1,844.08 a month

Against $1,750 of assumed rent, that is -$94.08 a month — the closest to breaking even of any state in this series, and still negative. Note what that means: even the naive "does the rent cover the mortgage" check, which is the check that hides vacancy and reserves entirely, does not pass here. Swap in Harrison County's $7,244 premium and the shortfall becomes -$429.58 a month.

4. The expenses people leave out

Vacancy, management, and capital reserves do not arrive as invoices. Nobody bills you for the month the house sits empty, or for the roof you will need in nine years, or — if you self-manage — for your own weekends. So they fall out of the mental model, and the property looks better than it is.

Here is the same house with those three removed and everything else identical:

The three omissions are worth $4,662 a year of net operating income — $1,680 of vacancy, $1,932 of management, $1,050 of reserve. They flatter the cap rate by 1.63 percentage points and hide 68% of the annual loss.

Notice the left column's expense ratio: 29.14%, below the 35% floor of the range most rentals land in. That is the tell. Any Mississippi analysis showing an expense ratio in the twenties has left something out, and the site's rental calculator will say so rather than letting it pass.

Notice also how the story changes. At 5.22% and -$182 a month, this reads as a near-miss — one rent bump from working. At 3.59% and -$570 a month it is not a near-miss. Same house, same day, three lines nobody invoices you for.

Vacancy. Eight percent is roughly one month a year, which is what a single clean turnover costs between move-out and the next tenant's first full month. Setting it to zero assumes the house is never empty, including between tenants.

Management. Set it to zero and the return is paying you for your own labor rather than for the property. Self-managing this house saves $1,932 a year, lifting NOI to $13,200.15 and the cap rate to 4.63%, with cash flow improving to -$321.58 a month. That is the single largest improvement available on this property short of changing the price — but it stops being free the moment you stop being available, and if the property is on the coast and you are not, the storm season is exactly when you will discover that.

Capital reserves. Roofs, HVAC, water heaters, and flooring have known lives, and in Mississippi's coastal and tornado-exposed counties the roof clock is shorter than the shingle warranty suggests — carriers start depreciating or declining roofs around 15 years, which means the insurance market will effectively force a replacement before the roof physically fails. The 5%-of-rent convention used above is one option. A harsher and equally common convention is 1% of purchase price a year for maintenance and 1% for capital, which here is $2,849 each. Run that way: total operating expenses $12,699.85, expense ratio 65.73%, NOI $6,620.15, cap rate 2.32%, cash flow -$869.91 a month, cash-on-cash -12.21%, DSCR 0.39.

So the honest cap-rate range for this property is 2.32% to 3.59% depending on which reserve convention you choose. Choose one deliberately.

What would actually have to be true

The rent this property needs. For cash flow to reach zero at this price and this financing, gross scheduled rent must reach about $30,396.88 a year, or $2,533.07 a month — 0.89% of purchase price per month. That is below the classic 1% threshold, which is a real point in Mississippi's favor: the low insurance line means the breakeven bar is lower here than in Louisiana (0.98%) or Oklahoma (1.03%). The assumed $1,750 rent is 0.61% of price.

The price this rent supports. Hold rent at $1,750 and solve for the price at which cash flow reaches zero with 25% down: about $181,839, roughly 64% of the statewide median. Section 5 shows that Hinds County's median house is $162,994 — below that number. This is one of the few states in the series where the breakeven price is not a fiction.

The down payment this price needs. Keep the $284,900 price and the $1,750 rent and solve for the loan the NOI can service: about $127,989 — which means roughly $156,911 down, or 55% of the price.

5. What actually varies by county here

Mississippi's county spread is unusual because it runs in two directions at once. Most states have one problem county. Mississippi has two, and they are opposite problems.

• Hinds County (Jackson): effective property tax rate 1.33% — more than double the state's 0.65% — with cheap insurance at $3,289 and a median price of only $162,994.
• Harrison County (Gulfport, Biloxi): effective rate 0.84%, insurance $7,244, median price $247,239.

Take the identical $284,900 house at $1,750 rent and apply each county's actual tax rate and average premium:

Both counties are meaningfully worse than the state average, and neither is worse for the same reason. Hinds loses $1,937.32 a year to property tax it would not pay elsewhere. Harrison loses $4,026 a year to insurance. The NOI gap between them on the same house at the same rent is $2,558.99, or 0.90 points of cap rate.

Now run each county at its own median price and a rent scaled to it, which is the comparison an actual buyer faces:

• Hinds County at $162,994 with an assumed $1,250 rent, 1.33% tax and $3,289 insurance: loan $122,245.50, P&I $813.30, cash in $48,898.20, tax $2,167.82, total opex $8,336.82, expense ratio 60.41%, NOI $5,463.18, cap rate 3.35%, cash flow -$358.04 a month, cash-on-cash -8.79%, DSCR 0.56.
• Harrison County at $247,239 with an assumed $1,650 rent, 0.84% tax and $7,244 insurance: loan $185,429.25, P&I $1,233.67, cash in $74,171.70, tax $2,076.81, total opex $13,122.41, expense ratio 72.04%, NOI $5,093.59, cap rate 2.06%, cash flow -$809.20 a month, cash-on-cash -13.09%, DSCR 0.34.

Read those two lines against each other. Hinds County's median house costs 34% less than Harrison's and produces more net operating income — $5,463.18 against $5,093.59 — despite carrying a property tax rate 58% higher. It also needs $25,273.50 less cash to buy. The coastal county's cheaper-looking entry price does not survive contact with its insurance bill.

And Harrison's problem compounds, because Section 2's per-occurrence deductible applies there and not in Jackson. At Harrison's own median, a single 2% named-storm deductible of $6,000 is 1.18 years of net operating income. Two landfalls in one season is $12,000 — 2.36 years of everything the property earns, due while the rent has stopped.

Two residual markets, not one — and this is the coastal trap

Most states operate one insurer of last resort. Mississippi runs two, and which one you need depends on where the property sits and which peril you cannot place.

• MRPIUA, the statewide FAIR Plan, writes eligible dwellings in all Mississippi counties for fire and extended coverage — but it deliberately EXCLUDES wind and hail on any location in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties.
• MWUA, the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association, created by House Bill 274 of the 1987 session, exists solely to make windstorm and hail insurance available in the coastal area. Those three counties are its territory.

Both are administered together at https://www.msplans.com/.

The practical consequence for a coastal landlord is that you do not buy one policy. You hold a stack of three:

1. An ex-wind homeowners or dwelling-fire policy (fire, liability, theft — everything but wind)
2. A wind policy from MWUA or a surplus-lines carrier
3. NFIP or private flood

Three policies, three premiums, three deductibles, and three sets of renewal dates and claim procedures. Six coastal counties — Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Pearl River, Stone and George — are where lenders and state programs commonly require separate windstorm coverage. If you are underwriting a property in any of those six and you have modeled a single premium line, you have modeled the wrong structure. Get all three quotes before the inspection period ends.

6. Financing a rental is not financing a home

These are the standard mechanisms across the mortgage market. Any specific rate or overlay is your lender's, not this article's.

Down payment. Conventional financing on a non-owner-occupied one-unit property generally requires more equity than an owner-occupied purchase — 20% is usually the floor and 25% the common expectation, which is why this article models 25%. FHA and VA are not available for a property you do not occupy. The genuine exception is house hacking: a two-to-four-unit property you live in one unit of qualifies for owner-occupied programs.

Rate. Investment-property loans price above owner-occupied loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply loan-level price adjustments for investment occupancy that scale with loan-to-value and credit score; lenders pass those through as rate or points. The 7.00% modeled above is an assumption. Get a real quote.

Reserves. Lenders typically require post-closing reserves — months of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance held in liquid assets — scaling with the number of financed properties you own. On the Mississippi coast, size your own reserve against two named-storm deductibles rather than one, for the per-occurrence reason in Section 2. On a $300,000 limit at 2% that is $12,000, not $6,000.

Deductible caps are a financing constraint, not just an insurance choice. Mississippi's Veterans Home Purchase Board caps required deductibles at 2%, allowing 5% only in limited circumstances, and most mortgage programs will not accept more than 2%. So the tempting move — take a 5% deductible to cut the premium — may not be available to a financed property at all. Confirm your lender's maximum acceptable deductible before you price the policy around it.

Rental income counting. Lenders credit a portion of market or lease rent toward qualifying, not all of it. Ask what percentage yours uses and whether they need an appraiser's rent schedule.

DSCR loans. A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing property income to debt service and largely skipping personal income documentation. The trade is a higher rate, a larger down payment, frequent prepayment penalties, and a minimum DSCR — commonly stated at or above 1.0 and often above 1.2.

Look at Section 3. This property's DSCR is 0.60, and even with vacancy, management, and reserves stripped out it is 0.87. In Harrison County it is 0.33. It does not qualify at 75% loan-to-value on any of those readings.

Insurance is a closing condition. A four-point inspection (roof, electrical, plumbing, HVAC) is routinely required to bind coverage, and a roof past 15 years can make a coastal house effectively uninsurable at a price a deal survives. Get bindable landlord quotes for the specific address during your inspection period — all three of them, if the property is in one of the six coastal counties.

7. What to check before you buy in this state

Insurance, and on the coast that means three quotes.

1. Get a bindable landlord policy quote for the specific address — not a homeowners quote, not a statewide average.
2. If the property is in Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Pearl River, Stone or George county, price all three layers separately: the ex-wind policy, the wind policy (MWUA or surplus lines), and flood. A single premium line is the wrong model there.
3. Read the named-storm deductible percentage off the declarations page and multiply it into dollars against the dwelling limit. Then double it, because Mississippi applies it per occurrence rather than once per season. That doubled figure is your minimum cash reserve.
4. Ask for the buy-back quote. 19 Miss. Code R. Part 1 Chapter 41 requires the insurer to offer a provision letting you buy the percentage deductible back down for extra premium. Most buyers never ask.
5. Confirm your lender's maximum acceptable deductible before you shop the policy. Most programs cap at 2%.
6. Confirm the policy carries loss of rents coverage and find out how many months it pays.
7. Get the roof age in writing and ask whether the roof settles at replacement cost, actual cash value, or on a payment schedule.
8. Apply to Strengthen Mississippi Homes — re-established by SB 2409 effective July 1, 2026, up to $10,000 for a FORTIFIED Roof retrofit, awarded by lottery to roughly 1,500 homeowners a year. Then confirm your carrier applies the FORTIFIED discount, which runs in the high teens to about 20%. On a $7,244 coastal premium that is roughly $1,449 a year.

Property tax, from the purchase price and the county rate.

1. Use the county rate, not the 0.65% state figure. Hinds is 1.33%; Harrison is 0.84%. That is a $1,937 a year difference on the median house.
2. Recompute the tax with no homestead exemption, since a rental gets none. Confirm the current exemption amount with the county tax assessor rather than from a secondary source.

The rent, from the market.

1. Pull three to five genuine comparable rentals for the specific neighborhood and note how long they sat.
2. Divide monthly rent by purchase price. Section 4's breakeven for this example was 0.89% — the lowest bar of the seven Southern states in this series, and a real Mississippi advantage.

The law, from the statute rather than from an article.

1. Do not take eviction timelines, notice periods, security-deposit handling, or late-fee rules from a blog — including this one. Mississippi residential tenancies are governed by the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at Miss. Code Ann. Title 89, Chapter 8, with removal-of-tenant procedure in Title 89, Chapter 7. Read the code at https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-89/, or have a Mississippi attorney walk you through it. Security-deposit handling in particular carries specific requirements that are easy and expensive to get wrong.
2. Check the city and county separately: rental registration, inspection requirements, and short-term rental restrictions are local. The coastal cities regulate short-term rentals differently from one another.

The money and the tax treatment.

1. Size your cash reserves against two named-storm deductibles in dollars, not against a month of mortgage payments.
2. Ask a Mississippi CPA how the property will be taxed, including depreciation, passive activity loss rules, Mississippi state income tax treatment of rental income, and treatment on sale.

What to do next

Every figure above came from a data file or was computed in front of you. Re-run all of it with your own numbers.

The Mississippi rental analysis calculator does exactly the work in Sections 3 and 4 — enter your price, your real local rent, and your own vacancy, management, and reserve assumptions, and it produces NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash, and DSCR. It also warns you when the expense ratio drops below the 35% floor, which Section 4 shows is the tell that something has been left out.

Because the coastal and inland insurance markets here are genuinely different, use the Mississippi insurance premium estimator to get closer to a real figure for a specific dwelling limit than either the $3,218 statewide average or Harrison County's $7,244 — and to convert the 1%, 2%, and 5% named-storm deductibles into actual dollars rather than leaving them as percentages.

The Mississippi mortgage payment calculator gives you the principal and interest figure for the rate you are actually quoted, which Section 3 shows is worth about $1,722 a year per point.

This article is general educational information about rental property arithmetic in Mississippi, based on figures current as of August 2026. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice. The rent figures in the worked examples are stated assumptions, not market data. Insurance premiums, property tax assessments, and mortgage rates change and vary by property and by county. Consult a Mississippi CPA, a licensed Mississippi insurance agent, and a Mississippi attorney before buying.