Collingsworth County, Texas Eviction Risk: Low

Collingsworth County sits in the far eastern Texas eviction laws Panhandle, a lightly populated stretch of rolling plains where ranching and dryland farming have always defined the economy more than rental housing. With a total population of just 1,927 spread across three incorporated places, this is one of the smallest counties in Texas eviction laws by headcount -- and its eviction-risk profile reflects that scale. The county scores 3.2/10 (Low), placing it at rank 208th of 254 Texas eviction laws counties on our scale where rank 1 is the highest-risk, most tenant-protective environment. That means 207 counties statewide carry a higher eviction risk score than Collingsworth -- putting this county firmly in the lower-risk of the state.

Wellington, the county seat, is the only community of appreciable size, with 1,883 residents and a score of 3.2/10. It accounts for nearly the entire county population and sets the tone for local rental dynamics. The two other tracked places -- Samnorwood (3.1/10, pop. 27) and Quail (3.1/10, pop. 17) -- are small enough that a handful of properties can shift local averages substantially, so their scores carry wide uncertainty bands. Across all three, scores stay tightly clustered between 3.1 and 3.2, a narrow spread that signals broadly consistent conditions rather than pockets of concentrated risk. The Texas statewide average is 3.6/10, so Collingsworth registers well below the norm.

The rental market here is compact. Roughly 27.5% of occupied housing units are renter-occupied, and average gross rent runs about $638 per month -- among the lower rent levels in Texas eviction laws. Rent burden (the share of renter household income going to rent) stands at 11.6%, a figure that most urban researchers would consider genuinely affordable by national benchmarks. Poverty, however, tells a different story: 30.2% of residents fall below the federal poverty line, a rate that is high even by rural Texas eviction laws standards and signals that financial stress -- rather than landlord-imposed rent pressure -- is the primary driver of housing instability in the county. When eviction filings do occur, they almost always trace back to non-payment rather than lease violations, and the county's volume is too low to generate statistically stable filing-rate data year over year. Texas eviction laws law governs the entire process: a 3-day written notice to vacate is the threshold event for virtually every eviction type under Tex. Prop. Code § 24.005, after which landlords may file in Justice Court with a filing fee of $54 to $125. Uncontested cases resolve in roughly 21 to 30 days; contested matters can stretch 45 to 90 days. There is no local rent control in Collingsworth County, and state law under TX Local Gov Code §214.902 preempts any municipality from enacting one.

Collingsworth County's Low risk designation reflects a rural rental market where modest rents and short notice timelines under Texas eviction laws law keep landlord exposure limited. The principal risk factor for operators here is the county's elevated poverty rate (30.2%), which can translate to payment disruptions even when rents are low. Wellington carries the county's effective risk signal at 3.2/10; the two smaller communities (Samnorwood and Quail) contribute negligible rental volume.