Worst Cities to Own a Vacation Rental

This small city on the Hudson River is famous as the hometown of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the site of his Presidential Library and Museum (the country’s first presidential library) — as well as of the Culinary Institute of America, considered the top U.S. cooking school. It falls down, though, in terms of potential return on investment for rental property, and is in the bottom seventh for overall safety ranking.

The Gulf Coast community of Orange Beach is known as a family vacation destination, but it might not be a place you’d want to buy a getaway. While it scores (just barely) in the top third for potential return on investment for rental property, but falls almost to the bottom in safety rank.

This unincorporated town, once a cetner of logging activity, has a population of less than 1,400, down 32.7% since 2010. It has one of the lowest rankings on this list for potential return on investment and is ranked 299 out of 318 for safety. (Other studies show that its property crime rate, on a scale of 1 to 100, from lowest to highest, is 50.4, above the U.S. average of 35.4.)

Stretching from Long Island Sound north along the Thames River, this charming community is famous for its historic Mystic Seaport and a concentration of good restaurants and shops, and scores highly for attractions and potential return on investment. What drags it down are its scores for safety and, above all, “competition and cost” — a metric measuring size of the rental market, vacancy rate, median property taxes, and median listing price per square foot.

Not to be confused with the active volcano of the same name on Hawaii’s Big Island, this community on the so-called “garden island” of Kauai scores near the top of the list for attractions. Its safety ranking, unfortunately, ties with that of Lahaina on Maui as the worst of the lot — and it suffers from one of the nation’s highest median listing prices per square foot.

Potential for return on investment is fairly good here, but the safety rank for this small agricultural town is low, as is its score for attractions, despite the fact that it borders two national parks — Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

Despite being considered the gateway to the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a glass-bottomed bridge stretching across the canyon at a height of 4,000 feet, this town — the inspiration for the town of Radiator Springs in the Pixar “Cars” movies — ranks almost at the bottom for attractions. While it gets high marks for safety, its rental market is highly competitive.

This mining town between the Bighorn and Black Hills national forests gets high marks for safety. Scores near the bottom for attractions and rental-market competition drag it down to its third-from-the-bottom position.

Barely edging out Bass Lake, California, as the worst place to buy a vacation home (with an overall score of 27.83, versus Bass Lake’s 27.55), this village along the Sheboygan River was founded in 1900 as a company town for the Kohler Company, manufacturers of plumbing fixtures and furniture. Despite a number of labor strikes against the firm over the years that have disrupted the village, it earns a high score for safety. Its scores in the other categories earn it this place at the bottom.

This is the lowest ranking of all the localities surveyed, with an overall score of 27.55, compared to first-place Shelbyville, Kentucky, at 68.88. It ranks near the bottom for safety, and despite a name that seems to suggest an angler’s paradise and its proximity to Yosemite National Park, Bass Lake ties with Peach Springs, Arizona (see above), and Cape Canaveral, Florida, for second-to-last place in the attractions category.