Editor’s Note: This is not investment advice, and we are not financial advisers.
Suppose real estate is the most significant investment a majority of people make in their lifetime. In that case, it’s best to understand the places in Arkansas with best potential return on investment.
After working in real estate adjacent roles for over a decade, I had the hypothesis that the best place to buy for a return on investment would be up-and-coming cities. Smaller cities where crime might be high now, but people still move to.
To test my hypothesis, we are going to look at places in Arkansas that are growing faster than average, but where home prices are below average, and crime rates are higher than average.
In everyday terms, these might be “deals”. The best deal in Arkansas at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Tontitown.
12.0% population growth · 3.3% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.0% population growth · 1.0% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.6% population growth · 3.6% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.0% population growth · 0.8% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.8% population growth · 2.2% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.1% population growth · 2.0% home price growth
White Hall is a city in Washington Township, Jefferson County, Arkansas, with a population of 5,526 in the 2010 census. It is included in the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combined Statistical Area. The city is home to the Pine Bluff Arsenal.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.1% population growth · -0.9% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
3.2% population growth · 0.4% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.4% population growth · 1.4% home price growth
Located in
Polk County, Arkansas
Mena is a city in Polk County, Arkansas, United States. It is also the county seat of Polk County. The population was 5,637 as of 2000 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.4% population growth · 0.7% home price growth
Greenbrier is a city in Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. It is part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 4,706 at the 2010 census, up from 3,042 at the 2000 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Arkansas’s statewide median.
Arkansas statewide median: $222,050
On the map
Where Arkansas’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Arkansas for 2026?
We were in real estate for almost five years and have worked on this site for over a decade. Suffice it to say we’ve put a lot of thought into finding an excellent place to buy a home.
So all that thinking has come to this moment where we get to spell out how we’d approach finding an up-and-coming place to live in Arkansas. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Arkansas with undervalued homes relative to pent-up demand using Saturday Night Science.
To do that, we looked at the most recent American Community Survey Census data for 2020-2024 and compared it to the previous vintage. Specifically, we used the following criteria:
- Y-o-Y Change In Population (People want to live here)
- Y-o-Y Change In Median Home Prices (People are willing to pay for it)
- Home Prices Relative To The State Average (It’s still kinda cheap)
We want places that are growing, have seen home prices increase in recent years, and are still “cheap” for Arkansas, with these caveats: home prices had to be within 20% of the state average, home prices increased in the last year, and the city had above 5,000 people.
So of the 538 cities and towns in Arkansas, only 68 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 68 for the above criteria, with 1 being the best. We averaged the rankings to create a “best place to buy” index, with the place having the lowest index being the best.
Turns out that Tontitown is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Natural State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Arkansas
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tontitown | 6,425 | $508,471 | 12.0% | 3.3% |
| 2 | Cave Springs | 6,008 | $570,143 | 4.0% | 1.0% |
| 3 | Cherokee Village | 5,046 | $150,230 | -0.6% | 3.6% |
| 4 | Sheridan | 5,165 | $218,333 | 2.0% | 0.8% |
| 5 | Barling | 5,007 | $193,772 | 1.8% | 2.2% |
| 6 | White Hall | 5,512 | $136,021 | -0.1% | 2.0% |
| 7 | Walnut Ridge | 5,434 | $129,711 | -0.1% | -0.9% |
| 8 | Ward | 6,573 | $207,462 | 3.2% | 0.4% |
| 9 | Mena | 5,582 | $192,538 | -0.4% | 1.4% |
| 10 | Greenbrier | 6,018 | $278,685 | 2.4% | 0.7% |
| 11 | Berryville | 5,707 | $237,505 | -0.1% | 2.8% |
| 12 | Warren | 5,353 | $101,650 | 0.2% | 1.3% |
| 13 | Alma | 5,906 | $245,962 | 0.5% | 3.1% |
| 14 | Pea Ridge | 8,108 | $348,118 | 10.3% | 0.5% |
| 15 | Prairie Grove | 7,798 | $317,577 | 4.7% | 0.8% |
| 16 | De Queen | 6,058 | $171,114 | -0.3% | 1.7% |
| 17 | Pocahontas | 7,538 | $140,492 | 0.8% | 1.7% |
| 18 | Morrilton | 7,080 | $163,947 | 0.8% | 2.2% |
| 19 | Osceola | 6,688 | $117,994 | -1.7% | -13.1% |
| 20 | Trumann | 7,410 | $131,845 | -0.3% | 1.1% |
| 21 | Heber Springs | 7,161 | $248,325 | 0.8% | -0.9% |
| 22 | Farmington | 9,094 | $333,516 | 7.4% | 1.3% |
| 23 | Newport | 8,024 | $84,278 | 0.1% | 3.1% |
| 24 | Wynne | 8,120 | $128,058 | -1.2% | -1.0% |
| 25 | Beebe | 8,707 | $210,268 | 1.5% | -2.9% |
| 26 | Stuttgart | 7,903 | $118,229 | -1.9% | -1.3% |
| 27 | Greenwood | 9,616 | $238,464 | 0.5% | 1.7% |
| 28 | Monticello | 8,257 | $163,404 | -0.8% | 0.5% |
| 29 | Lowell | 10,849 | $360,677 | 3.9% | 2.7% |
| 30 | Clarksville | 9,526 | $186,109 | 0.3% | 0.6% |
| 31 | Hope | 8,671 | $113,808 | -1.3% | 3.4% |
| 32 | Helena-West Helena | 8,935 | $86,458 | -3.1% | -4.2% |
| 33 | Arkadelphia | 10,099 | $183,376 | -2.1% | 2.3% |
| 34 | Batesville | 11,445 | $176,299 | 0.5% | 1.7% |
| 35 | Camden | 10,307 | $105,164 | -1.2% | 4.4% |
| 36 | Malvern | 10,953 | $142,161 | 0.1% | -1.8% |
| 37 | Magnolia | 10,894 | $145,079 | -0.7% | 1.1% |
| 38 | Marion | 13,623 | $238,641 | -0.1% | 2.5% |
| 39 | Mountain Home | 13,108 | $233,820 | 0.7% | -1.2% |
| 40 | Harrison | 13,350 | $230,382 | 1.0% | 1.6% |
| 41 | Blytheville | 12,790 | $96,161 | -1.8% | 3.0% |
| 42 | Forrest City | 12,646 | $73,436 | -1.4% | 7.0% |
| 43 | Centerton | 21,920 | $349,882 | 8.5% | 0.2% |
| 44 | Siloam Springs | 18,699 | $284,971 | 3.3% | 1.4% |
| 45 | El Dorado | 17,115 | $133,853 | -1.5% | -0.3% |
| 46 | Maumelle | 19,373 | $307,539 | 0.5% | 0.5% |
| 47 | Bryant | 21,504 | $254,713 | 1.8% | 0.9% |
| 48 | Van Buren | 23,763 | $204,826 | 0.9% | 2.9% |
| 49 | Searcy | 23,340 | $216,680 | 1.0% | 0.1% |
| 50 | West Memphis | 23,929 | $131,757 | -0.9% | 7.6% |
| 51 | Cabot | 26,960 | $247,085 | 0.8% | 1.1% |
| 52 | Jacksonville | 29,221 | $168,541 | -0.2% | 1.2% |
| 53 | Paragould | 30,215 | $191,096 | 0.9% | 1.8% |
| 54 | Russellville | 29,162 | $212,079 | 0.4% | 0.7% |
| 55 | Texarkana | 29,177 | $167,818 | -0.6% | 1.0% |
| 56 | Sherwood | 33,070 | $236,102 | 0.5% | 2.3% |
| 57 | Benton | 36,595 | $239,101 | 1.8% | 1.0% |
| 58 | Hot Springs | 37,920 | $243,826 | -0.3% | -1.0% |
| 59 | Pine Bluff | 39,743 | $75,017 | -1.7% | 4.5% |
| 60 | Bentonville | 58,249 | $488,112 | 3.4% | 0.3% |
| 61 | North Little Rock | 64,538 | $165,643 | 0.1% | 3.1% |
| 62 | Conway | 67,642 | $244,316 | 2.0% | 0.4% |
| 63 | Rogers | 72,981 | $385,743 | 2.2% | 1.9% |
| 64 | Jonesboro | 80,137 | $222,893 | 1.2% | 0.8% |
| 65 | Springdale | 88,160 | $338,447 | 0.9% | 2.5% |
| 66 | Fayetteville | 99,319 | $377,910 | 2.2% | 1.5% |
| 67 | Fort Smith | 89,805 | $193,977 | 0.3% | 2.4% |
| 68 | Little Rock | 203,436 | $216,519 | 0.3% | 1.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 68 Arkansas cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Arkansas for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Arkansas. And, to be clear, we aren’t necessarily saying these places are the best places to live, just that it looks like they might be in a couple of years based on the data.
In fact, every place in the following table meets our criteria, so even though it may not look super long, remember we started off with all 538 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Arkansas are Tontitown, Cave Springs, Cherokee Village, Sheridan, Barling, White Hall, Walnut Ridge, Ward, Mena, and Greenbrier.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
