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 Colorado 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 Colorado 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 Colorado at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Timnath.
11.7% population growth · 0.2% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
7.6% population growth · -1.0% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.1% population growth · -0.4% home price growth
Located in
Morgan County, Colorado
The City of Brush is a Statutory City located in Morgan County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 5463 at the 2010 United States Census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.3% population growth · -1.2% home price growth
Located in
Chaffee County, Colorado
The City of Salida is a Statutory City that is the county seat and most populous city of Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. The population was 5,236 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
8.9% population growth · -1.3% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.6% population growth · 0.7% home price growth
Eaton is a Statutory Town in Weld County, Colorado, United States. The population was 4,567 at the 2010 census.
The town is named after Benjamin Harrison Eaton, a pioneer of irrigation who played a leading role in transforming the arid prairie of the Great Plains east of Colorado’s Front Range into a thriving agricultural region with water brought from the nearby Rocky Mountains in the late 19th century.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.4% population growth · 1.8% home price growth
Located in
Arapahoe County, Colorado
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.7% population growth · -1.8% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.6% population growth · 0.1% home price growth
Located in
Larimer County, Colorado
The Town of Estes Park is a statutory town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. A popular summer resort and the location of the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park lies along the Big Thompson River. Estes Park had a population of 5,858 at the 2010 census. Landmarks include The Stanley Hotel and The Baldpate Inn. The town overlooks Lake Estes and Olympus Dam.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.8% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Gunnison County, Colorado
The City of Gunnison is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Gunnison County, Colorado, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,854. It was named in honor of John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853. Gunnison is a Home Rule municipality which reserves the right to choose how it is governed.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Colorado’s statewide median.
Colorado statewide median: $541,842
On the map
Where Colorado’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Colorado 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 Colorado. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Colorado 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 Colorado, 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 450 cities and towns in Colorado, only 77 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 77 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 Timnath is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Centennial State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Colorado
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timnath | 8,941 | $675,535 | 11.7% | 0.2% |
| 2 | Mead | 5,919 | $556,278 | 7.6% | -1.0% |
| 3 | Brush | 5,306 | $298,242 | 0.1% | -0.4% |
| 4 | Salida | 5,861 | $700,439 | 1.3% | -1.2% |
| 5 | Severance | 10,130 | $495,599 | 8.9% | -1.3% |
| 6 | Eaton | 5,867 | $466,373 | 0.6% | 0.7% |
| 7 | Sheridan | 6,005 | $436,932 | -0.4% | 1.8% |
| 8 | Dacono | 6,530 | $502,451 | 1.7% | -1.8% |
| 9 | Estes Park | 5,844 | $684,046 | -0.6% | 0.1% |
| 10 | Gunnison | 6,766 | $620,585 | 0.8% | 1.2% |
| 11 | Carbondale | 6,637 | $1,437,953 | 1.3% | 1.7% |
| 12 | Cherry Hills Village | 6,354 | $3,182,803 | -0.2% | 5.4% |
| 13 | Avon | 5,972 | $1,258,435 | -1.4% | -0.1% |
| 14 | Lochbuie | 8,609 | $464,474 | 5.7% | -1.5% |
| 15 | Eagle | 7,442 | $1,028,575 | -0.5% | 2.2% |
| 16 | La Junta | 7,140 | $158,563 | -1.0% | -1.8% |
| 17 | Gypsum | 8,941 | $699,183 | 5.4% | -1.2% |
| 18 | Lamar | 7,611 | $180,906 | -0.2% | 5.0% |
| 19 | Monument | 11,735 | $755,938 | 6.3% | -0.4% |
| 20 | Aspen | 6,756 | $3,535,613 | -1.5% | 2.2% |
| 21 | Milliken | 8,871 | $450,807 | 2.0% | 0.3% |
| 22 | Woodland Park | 7,949 | $534,082 | 0.5% | -1.3% |
| 23 | Trinidad | 8,286 | $230,018 | -0.3% | -3.1% |
| 24 | Berthoud | 12,411 | $606,280 | 6.2% | -0.9% |
| 25 | Fort Lupton | 8,897 | $464,448 | 4.7% | -1.7% |
| 26 | Wellington | 11,798 | $470,775 | 2.3% | 0.1% |
| 27 | Cortez | 8,976 | $339,964 | 0.9% | -0.8% |
| 28 | Delta | 9,421 | $368,018 | 1.7% | 1.1% |
| 29 | Craig | 8,991 | $304,797 | -0.3% | -1.1% |
| 30 | Alamosa | 9,879 | $314,612 | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| 31 | Rifle | 10,570 | $497,317 | 1.0% | 1.5% |
| 32 | Glenwood Springs | 10,241 | $869,621 | 0.7% | -0.3% |
| 33 | Frederick | 16,651 | $544,142 | 4.8% | -0.9% |
| 34 | Castle Pines | 13,388 | $895,088 | 6.5% | 0.9% |
| 35 | Fort Morgan | 11,605 | $328,288 | 0.7% | -0.2% |
| 36 | Steamboat Springs | 13,433 | $1,310,883 | 0.7% | 0.9% |
| 37 | Firestone | 18,049 | $570,742 | 4.0% | -0.3% |
| 38 | Superior | 13,305 | $833,348 | 1.3% | 2.5% |
| 39 | Lone Tree | 14,147 | $894,853 | 0.1% | 1.4% |
| 40 | Federal Heights | 14,125 | $399,108 | -0.2% | -0.7% |
| 41 | Fruita | 13,691 | $480,864 | 0.8% | 1.3% |
| 42 | John | 18,883 | $542,747 | 4.5% | 2.2% |
| 43 | Sterling | 13,172 | $244,759 | -0.8% | -0.3% |
| 44 | Greenwood Village | 15,420 | $1,414,364 | -0.4% | 3.7% |
| 45 | Louisville | 20,786 | $837,473 | -0.0% | 2.1% |
| 46 | Montrose | 21,044 | $467,131 | 1.6% | 1.3% |
| 47 | Durango | 19,411 | $747,772 | 0.8% | -0.2% |
| 48 | Golden | 20,417 | $863,815 | -0.2% | 0.9% |
| 49 | Evans | 22,396 | $394,719 | 0.6% | -0.5% |
| 50 | Windsor | 37,914 | $577,243 | 5.6% | -1.5% |
| 51 | Erie | 33,808 | $725,091 | 5.9% | -0.2% |
| 52 | Lafayette | 30,602 | $676,851 | 0.4% | 0.9% |
| 53 | Fountain | 29,300 | $394,609 | -0.1% | 0.2% |
| 54 | Wheat Ridge | 32,070 | $606,404 | -0.3% | 0.7% |
| 55 | Englewood | 34,129 | $516,657 | 1.1% | 1.9% |
| 56 | Brighton | 42,059 | $498,701 | 2.1% | 0.1% |
| 57 | Northglenn | 38,014 | $463,886 | 0.2% | 1.0% |
| 58 | Littleton | 44,710 | $634,610 | -0.8% | 0.7% |
| 59 | Parker | 61,783 | $688,178 | 2.8% | 0.2% |
| 60 | Commerce City | 66,445 | $490,702 | 2.8% | -1.1% |
| 61 | Grand Junction | 68,142 | $422,320 | 1.7% | 0.9% |
| 62 | Castle Rock | 79,123 | $672,107 | 3.3% | 0.9% |
| 63 | Broomfield | 76,304 | $632,201 | 1.6% | 1.0% |
| 64 | Loveland | 78,410 | $500,792 | 1.4% | 0.1% |
| 65 | Longmont | 99,406 | $556,720 | 0.5% | 0.7% |
| 66 | Greeley | 110,806 | $420,464 | 1.3% | 0.1% |
| 67 | Boulder | 106,433 | $964,531 | 0.1% | 1.7% |
| 68 | Centennial | 108,201 | $649,086 | 0.8% | 1.6% |
| 69 | Pueblo | 111,561 | $283,603 | 0.0% | -1.1% |
| 70 | Westminster | 115,484 | $527,654 | -0.1% | 0.9% |
| 71 | Arvada | 122,634 | $616,566 | -0.2% | 1.2% |
| 72 | Thornton | 144,187 | $502,945 | 0.9% | 0.5% |
| 73 | Lakewood | 156,583 | $573,913 | 0.2% | 0.9% |
| 74 | Fort Collins | 170,229 | $563,815 | 0.3% | 1.7% |
| 75 | Aurora | 394,432 | $463,081 | 1.1% | -0.0% |
| 76 | Colorado Springs | 487,887 | $449,452 | 1.0% | 0.2% |
| 77 | Denver | 718,877 | $539,666 | 0.7% | 0.7% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 77 Colorado cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Colorado for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Colorado. 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 450 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Colorado are Timnath, Mead, Brush, Salida, Severance, Eaton, Sheridan, Dacono, Estes Park, and Gunnison.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
