Tate County, Mississippi Eviction Risk: Very Low

Tate County, Mississippi scores 4/10 overall, landing in the Moderate risk tier and placing 35th out of 82 Mississippi eviction laws counties, meaning 34 counties carry higher landlord risk and 47 are less risky. That middle-of-the-pack position reflects a market where fundamentals are not dramatically stacked against landlords, but operating conditions require attention: average rent sits at $917, rent burden averages 32.3% of renter income, and the renter share of households reaches 45.2%. None of those figures suggest a frictionless market, but they also fall short of the most stressed Mississippi counties.

Within the county, risk is far from uniform. Across the 5 scored cities, scores range from a low of 2.4/10 to a high of 4.1/10, a spread of 1.7 points that can meaningfully change the calculus for any specific acquisition. Investors treating Tate County as a monolithic market will miss real variation in tenant-base stability and turnover exposure from one municipality to the next.

The cities inside Tate County

Senatobia is the county seat and by far the most populated city, home to 8,380 residents, and it carries the highest risk score in the county at 4.1/10. That combination, a large renter pool relative to county size and the top risk reading, means Senatobia warrants the closest underwriting scrutiny for investors considering multi-unit or single-family rentals. Coldwater comes in second at 3.9/10 with a population of 1,156, a meaningfully smaller market but still above the county average.

At the other end of the spectrum, Independence scores 2.4/10, the lowest in the county, followed by Strayhorn at 2.6/10 and Arkabutla at 2.8/10. These three smaller communities, with populations of 133, 176, and 202 respectively, show considerably softer risk profiles. Thin rental markets in very small towns carry their own liquidity concerns, but from a pure eviction-risk standpoint they sit well below Senatobia. The 1.7-point gap between the county floor and ceiling underscores that city-level data, not county averages, should drive any purchase decision here.

State-level laws that apply here

Every landlord in Tate County operates under Mississippi state law, specifically Miss. Code SS 89-8 (Landlord and Tenant). For non-payment of rent, the required notice period is 3 days. A lease violation with the option to cure requires 14 days, and a no-cause end-of-term notice requires 30 days. Understanding the full Mississippi eviction process before acquiring here is essential, because uncontested cases still take 30 to 60 days to resolve, and contested cases can run 60 to 120 days. Court filing fees run $75 to $150, sheriff lockout fees add $30 to $120, and attorney fees typically range from $500 to $2,500. Mississippi eviction costs can therefore reach into four figures even for straightforward cases.

On the regulatory side, Mississippi imposes no rent control and does not require just cause for non-renewal, and the state preempts any local rent-control ordinance. Source-of-income is not a protected class under state fair housing rules. These are among the more landlord-permissive statutory frameworks in the South, which partly explains why statewide risk scores in Mississippi, including Tate County's moderate reading, tend to be contained relative to high-regulation states.

With a 27.7% poverty rate across Tate County's cities, tenant financial fragility is a real operating variable; review each city's individual score in the grid above before committing to a specific submarket.