Hot Spring County, Arkansas Eviction Risk: Very Low

Hot Spring County scores 2/10 on the eviction-risk scale, placing it in the Low risk tier across its 9 mapped cities. For landlords operating in Arkansas eviction laws, that figure translates to a market where tenant turnover stress, filing frequency, and political headwinds are all below the norm. The county ranks 33rd of 75 Arkansas eviction laws counties, meaning 32 counties carry higher risk and 42 are more landlord-friendly, putting Hot Spring County squarely in the middle third of the state rather than at either extreme.

Within the county, individual city scores range from 1.7 to 2.1 out of 10, a narrow band that signals broadly consistent conditions rather than pockets of sharply elevated risk. Average rent sits at $795 per month, and the average rent burden is 27.3% of household income, a level that keeps most tenants financially stable enough to meet rent obligations on a regular basis. For investors weighing entry, those figures point to a low-volatility rental market with limited systemic pressure on tenants.

The cities inside Hot Spring County

The highest-risk address in the county is Perla, scoring 2.1/10, though even that figure remains solidly in the Low tier. The county seat of Malvern, home to 10,953 residents and the dominant rental pool in the county, comes in at 2/10, joined at that score by Midway (population 1,279) and Magnet Cove. Rockport and Bismarck each score 1.9/10, while Donaldson and Friendship sit at 1.8/10. The lowest-risk city tracked is Jones Mills at 1.7/10.

That half-point spread from Jones Mills to Perla is narrow enough that property selection across most of the county carries similar risk exposure. Landlords should still underwrite each city individually, since hyper-local factors, tenant income mix, and building age can move outcomes within a tight scoring band.

State-level laws that apply here

Every Hot Spring County landlord operates under Ark. Code § 18-17 (Residential Landlord-Tenant Act). For non-payment, the required notice is 3 days. A lease-violation cure notice runs 14 days, and an end-of-term or no-cause notice requires 30 days. The Arkansas eviction process from filing to judgment takes 30 to 60 days when uncontested, and 90 to 150 days when contested. Understanding the Arkansas eviction costs matters for budgeting: court filing fees range from $165 to $250, sheriff lockout fees from $40 to $120, and attorney fees from $500 to $2,500 depending on case complexity.

Arkansas does not require just cause for non-renewal, and state law preempts any local rent-control ordinance, so no city inside Hot Spring County can impose a rent cap. Source-of-income is not a protected class under state statute. Those provisions give landlords in Hot Spring County a relatively straightforward legal framework compared with many other states, and they reinforce the low-risk score the county carries on this index.

With an average poverty rate of 22.9% and a renter share of 43.8% across the county, roughly four in ten occupied units are rentals, spread across the city grid listed above, with Malvern eviction risk accounting for the bulk of the rental stock.