St. Mary Parish, Louisiana Eviction Risk: Low

St. Mary Parish scores 2.5/10 (Low) on eviction risk, placing it among the more landlord-friendly markets in Louisiana eviction laws. Ranked 55 of 64 parishes statewide, only 9 parishes are less risky, meaning 54 carry higher eviction risk than St. Mary, a clear signal that landlords here operate with relatively less exposure than most of the state. Across the parish's 9 cities, average rent runs $826 per month, and the renter share sits at 36.8%, giving investors a meaningful tenant pool without the volatility that higher-risk markets bring.

That said, the parish is not uniform. City-level scores range from 2.3 to 2.9, a spread wide enough to matter when evaluating individual acquisitions. Landlords who treat the county average as representative of any single submarket do so at their own risk.

The cities inside St. Mary Parish

Patterson carries the highest eviction risk in the parish at 2.9/10 and is also the second-largest city with a population of 6,461. Baldwin follows at 2.6/10 (population 1,962), and Patterson comes in at 2.9/10 with 5,744 residents. These three cities account for the upper band of risk in St. Mary Parish and warrant tighter tenant screening and reserves than the parish average implies.

At the opposite end, Morgan City, the parish's largest city at 11,064 residents, scores just 2.1/10, the lowest in the parish. Berwick and Bayou Vista each score 2.3/10, making the western and southern portions of the parish notably more stable for landlords. Risk here is hyper-local, and the gap between Franklin and Morgan City is real enough to shape portfolio decisions at the city level, not just the parish level.

State-level laws that apply here

Every landlord in St. Mary Parish operates under Louisiana state law, specifically La. R.S. § 9:3251 et seq. (Louisiana eviction laws Lease Law). For non-payment of rent or a lease violation, Louisiana eviction laws requires only a 5-day notice before filing. End-of-term no-cause terminations require 30 days. Understanding the Louisiana eviction laws eviction process is worth reviewing in full before your first filing, because timelines tighten fast once the notice period closes. An uncontested case typically resolves in 14 to 30 days; a contested case can run 30 to 90 days.

Louisiana eviction costs add up quickly. Court filing fees run $170 to $300, sheriff lockout fees range from $50 to $175, and attorney fees, if you need counsel, run $500 to $3,000. Louisiana eviction laws imposes no just-cause requirement for evictions and state law preempts any local rent-control ordinance, so no parish in Louisiana eviction laws can cap rents above the state framework. Louisiana security deposit limits and Louisiana tenant protections are comparatively lean, which keeps the legal environment predictable for landlords who follow the statute correctly.

With a poverty rate of 22.6% and roughly 36.8% of residents renting, St. Mary Parish presents real credit and income risk at the tenant level, even though the parish-wide eviction risk score is low; the city grid above shows which specific markets carry the most concentrated exposure.