Mills County, Texas Eviction Risk: Very Low

Mills County sits in the Texas Hill Country transition zone west of Waco, a sparsely populated ranching and farming community where roughly 2,155 residents are spread across three small incorporated places and a wide stretch of open ranch land. With an eviction risk score of 2.2/10 (Very Low), the county ranks 193rd of 254 Texas counties - placing it squarely in the lower-risk third of the state. Only 61 Texas counties score lower; 192 are riskier. For landlords operating here, that ranking reflects a legal environment shaped entirely by state law with no local ordinance layer adding complication.

The county seat is Goldthwaite, home to roughly 1,843 of the county's residents and the only place with enough commercial activity to support a meaningful rental market. Goldthwaite carries a score of 2.2/10, consistent with the county average. The small community of Mullin, with about 220 residents, scores 2.5/10 - the highest in the county, though still firmly in the Very Low tier. Priddy, the smallest incorporated place at around 92 people, scores 2.1/10, anchoring the low end of the county's 2.1 to 2.5 score spread. That narrow spread across all three places tells a consistent story: Mills County operates as a uniform low-risk jurisdiction with no meaningful variation by sub-market.

The economic profile reinforces the low-risk reading. Average rent in Mills County runs about $717 per month, well below the Texas statewide average and reflecting the rural economy's limited rental stock, which consists largely of older single-family homes and a handful of mobile home parks. Rent burden averages just 19.7% of household income - one of the more comfortable ratios in the state - and the renter share of occupied housing sits at 32.9%, meaning the majority of residents are owner-occupants. Poverty sits at 7.3%, which is modest for a rural Texas county. These numbers collectively describe a market where tenants have limited income but also face limited rent pressure, and where eviction filings are infrequent simply because the absolute volume of rental units is small. Under Texas law, landlords here must serve a 3-day written notice to vacate before filing with the justice court - for non-payment, lease violations, holdovers, and end-of-term situations alike (Tex. Prop. Code § 24.005). Court filing fees run $54 to $125, uncontested cases typically resolve in 21 to 30 days, and contested matters extend to 45 to 90 days. Texas state law preempts any local rent control measure under TX Local Gov Code §214.902, so there is no rent cap to account for and no just-cause eviction requirement at any level of government.

Mills County's 2.2/10 score sits lower-risk within Texas's 254-county ranking. The county's 19.7% average rent burden and $717 average rent reflect a rural market where renter demand stays low and tenant-protective ordinances are absent - the sole legal framework is the statewide Tex. Prop. Code § 91 and § 92 regime, which is uniformly landlord-permissive compared to states with local rent stabilization or just-cause requirements.