Pulaski County, Missouri Eviction Risk: Low

Pulaski County scores 3.6/10 (Low) on the eviction-risk scale, averaging across 6 cities with a total population of roughly 30,724. That places it at rank 82 of 115 Missouri eviction laws counties, meaning 81 counties carry higher eviction risk and only 33 are more landlord-friendly than Pulaski. For investors, this is a demonstrably low-friction operating environment by Missouri eviction laws standards, with average rent running $1,115 per month and a rent-burden rate of just 25.4%, suggesting tenants here are not being squeezed to the edge of their budgets.

The intra-county spread runs from 3.2 to 4, a meaningful gap that investors should not ignore. The county as a whole skews low-risk, but the specific city you choose inside Pulaski County will shape your real-world eviction exposure far more than the county average alone. The high renter share of 68% of households means there is a large tenant base, and the composition of that base, military families, working families, rural renters, varies sharply by city.

The cities inside Pulaski County

The highest-risk city in the county is Waynesville (4/10), a small community of 1,334 residents. Crocker follows at 3.2/10 with a population of 1,024. Neither is high-risk by any national standard, but landlords operating in these smaller towns should be prepared for the slower court timelines and tighter tenant pools that rural Missouri eviction laws markets can produce. Waynesville (4/10, population 5,442) and Richland (4/10, population 2,136) sit in the moderate-low tier.

The county's two largest population centers, Fort Leonard Wood (3.6/10, population 15,432) and St. Robert (3.2/10, population 5,356), are also the safest by score. St. Robert holds the county's lowest eviction-risk reading. Both communities benefit from the proximity of the Fort Leonard Wood eviction risk military installation, which tends to stabilize tenant income and turnover patterns. For landlords, this concentration of lower-risk stock in the most populous part of the county is a meaningful structural advantage. Risk is genuinely hyper-local here: the difference between St. Robert and Dixon is nearly a full point on a 10-point scale despite the two cities sitting within the same county lines.

State-level laws that apply here

Missouri eviction laws landlord-tenant law, primarily governed by RSMo § 441 (Landlord and Tenant), is notably landlord-friendly on the procedural side. For nonpayment of rent, the Missouri eviction laws eviction process permits a rent-and-possession action under RSMo § 535.010 with no mandatory pre-filing cure notice, meaning the landlord can file immediately. Material lease violations require a 10-day notice under RSMo § 441.060, and terminating a month-to-month tenancy requires 30 days notice under the same statute. An uncontested eviction typically resolves in 21 to 45 days; contested cases run 45 to 120 days.

Missouri eviction costs run from a court filing fee of $70 to $180, a sheriff lockout fee of $40 to $150, and attorney fees of $500 to $3,000 depending on complexity. Reviewing Missouri security deposit limits and Missouri tenant protections before drafting leases is worthwhile: Missouri eviction laws has no statewide rent cap (RSMo preempts local rent control), and just-cause eviction requirements do not apply under state law. Source-of-income protection is also not a protected class under state statute, giving landlords relatively broad screening discretion.

With a poverty rate of 10.2% and a renter share of 68%, Pulaski County's tenant base is large and modestly stable; the city-by-city scores above show where that stability is most and least concentrated.