Monroe County, Pennsylvania Eviction Risk: Moderate

Monroe County carries an average eviction-risk score of 4/10, placing it in the Elevated tier and ranking it 10th of 67 Pennsylvania counties by risk, meaning only 9 counties statewide present a harder operating environment for landlords. Spread across 16 cities and a total population of roughly 48,559, the county sits firmly in the higher-risk third of Pennsylvania. With an average renter rent burden of 38.8% of income and an average rent of $1,242, a meaningful share of tenants are financially stretched, a condition that historically correlates with slower rent collections and a higher eviction frequency.

The intra-county spread runs from 4.9 to 6.6 out of 10, a difference wide enough to matter when you are deciding which sub-market to enter. Investors accustomed to evaluating risk at the county level will find that Monroe County's aggregate score masks meaningfully different conditions across its communities. Understanding those differences is the first practical step to underwriting rentals here.

The cities inside Monroe County

The riskiest corners of the county cluster around the Stroudsburg corridor. Stroudsburg (population 5,894) and Portland both score 6.6/10, the highest readings in the county. East Stroudsburg, the county's largest city at 9,319 residents, scores 6.5/10, only slightly lower. Mount Pocono and Delaware Water Gap each score 6.4/10. These communities share the county's highest concentration of cost-burdened renters and should be underwritten with conservative vacancy and legal-cost assumptions.

On the lower end of the range, Sun Valley scores 5.1/10 and Penn Estates scores 5.9/10, both well below the county average. These figures do not represent low risk in an absolute sense, but relative to the rest of Monroe County they signal somewhat more stable tenant profiles and shorter average collection timelines. Risk is genuinely hyper-local here: a landlord owning units in Sun Valley faces a materially different operating environment than one holding properties in Stroudsburg, even though both addresses fall under the same county data.

State-level laws that apply here

Pennsylvania state law governs every tenancy in Monroe County. Under the Pennsylvania eviction process (68 P.S. § 250.101 et seq., the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951), landlords must serve a 10-day written notice for nonpayment of rent, a 15-day notice for material breach when the tenancy has been in place less than one year, and a 30-day notice for material breach on tenancies of one year or more. No advance notice is required at the end of a fixed lease term. Once a complaint is filed, an uncontested eviction typically resolves in 30 to 60 days; a contested matter can run 60 to 150 days.

On cost, Pennsylvania eviction costs break down into court filing fees of $130 to $250, sheriff lockout fees of $50 to $150, and attorney fees that commonly range from $500 to $3,000 depending on whether the matter is contested. Pennsylvania imposes no statewide rent control, and state law expressly preempts local governments from enacting rent caps, so Monroe County landlords face no local rent ceiling. Just-cause eviction requirements do not apply statewide either. Fair housing enforcement falls under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission; source of income is not a protected class under state law, though landlords should verify local ordinances independently. Reviewing Pennsylvania security deposit limits and Pennsylvania tenant protections before signing leases will round out the due-diligence picture.

With a poverty rate of 11% and 27.1% of households renting, roughly one in four Monroe County residents is a tenant, and a meaningful segment of that pool faces financial pressure that affects collection reliability; the city-by-city risk grid above is the most direct tool for narrowing down which specific communities within the county offer the most defensible entry points.