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 Idaho 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 Idaho 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 Idaho at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Kimberly.
4.7% population growth · 0.1% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.9% population growth · -0.1% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.1% population growth · 2.2% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.3% population growth · 0.4% home price growth
Weiser is a city in the rural western part of the U.S. state of Idaho and the county seat of Washington County. With its mild climate, the city supports farm, orchard, and livestock endeavors in the vicinity. The city sits at the confluence of the Weiser River with the great Snake River, which marks the border with Oregon. The population was 5,507 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.0% population growth · 0.8% home price growth
Fruitland is a city in Payette County, Idaho, United States. It lies along U.S. Route 95 in the Treasure Valley of southwest Idaho, about 50 miles west of Boise on the border with Oregon. It is part of the Ontario Micropolitan Area. Fruitland is named after the apple orchards that surround the community, and its slogan is “The Big Apple of Idaho.”
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.2% population growth · 0.8% home price growth
Preston is a city in Franklin County, Idaho, United States. The population was 5,204 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Franklin County. It is part of the Logan, Utah-Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.5% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Minidoka County, Idaho
Rupert is the county seat and largest city of Minidoka County, Idaho, United States. It is part of the Burley Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,554 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.1% population growth · 1.0% home price growth
Located in
Gem County, Idaho
Emmett is a city in Gem County, Idaho, United States. The population was 6,557 at the 2010 census, up from 5,490 in 2000. It is the county seat and the only city in the county. Emmett is part of the BoiseNampa, Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.1% population growth · -15.0% home price growth
Located in
Payette County, Idaho
Payette is a city in and the county seat of Payette County, Idaho, United States. The population was 7,433 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Ontario, ORID Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
5.4% population growth · 0.3% home price growth
Located in
Canyon County, Idaho
Middleton is a city in Canyon County, Idaho, United States. The population was 5,524 at the 2010 census, up from 2,978 in 2000. It is part of the Boise City-Nampa, Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Idaho’s statewide median.
Idaho statewide median: $473,335
On the map
Where Idaho’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Idaho 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 Idaho. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Idaho 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 Idaho, 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 224 cities and towns in Idaho, only 36 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 36 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 Kimberly is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Gem State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Idaho
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kimberly | 5,111 | $448,259 | 4.7% | 0.1% |
| 2 | Rigby | 5,404 | $472,610 | 2.9% | -0.1% |
| 3 | Shelley | 5,092 | $429,812 | 2.1% | 2.2% |
| 4 | Weiser | 5,935 | $363,062 | 2.3% | 0.4% |
| 5 | Fruitland | 6,663 | $409,435 | 4.0% | 0.8% |
| 6 | Preston | 5,928 | $431,655 | 2.2% | 0.8% |
| 7 | Rupert | 6,190 | $326,313 | 0.5% | 1.2% |
| 8 | Emmett | 8,275 | $455,351 | 4.1% | 1.0% |
| 9 | Payette | 8,536 | $368,362 | 2.1% | -15.0% |
| 10 | Middleton | 10,649 | $499,966 | 5.4% | 0.3% |
| 11 | Hailey | 9,665 | $900,673 | 2.4% | 4.5% |
| 12 | Rathdrum | 10,874 | $574,778 | 7.3% | 3.6% |
| 13 | Sandpoint | 9,637 | $632,345 | 4.3% | 1.0% |
| 14 | Star | 14,745 | $577,031 | 11.4% | -0.7% |
| 15 | Burley | 11,958 | $330,751 | 2.0% | 1.5% |
| 16 | Jerome | 12,930 | $399,693 | 1.9% | 0.1% |
| 17 | Garden City | 12,654 | $470,736 | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| 18 | Blackfoot | 12,782 | $369,865 | 1.2% | 2.2% |
| 19 | Mountain Home | 16,493 | $358,404 | 1.4% | 0.4% |
| 20 | Hayden | 16,338 | $636,614 | 2.0% | 2.3% |
| 21 | Chubbuck | 16,126 | $379,219 | 1.4% | 0.0% |
| 22 | Ammon | 19,064 | $416,580 | 3.1% | 1.8% |
| 23 | Kuna | 27,158 | $455,595 | 4.6% | 0.9% |
| 24 | Moscow | 26,286 | $467,640 | 1.6% | -0.0% |
| 25 | Eagle | 32,855 | $781,181 | 4.3% | -1.6% |
| 26 | Rexburg | 40,543 | $420,170 | 2.4% | 1.8% |
| 27 | Lewiston | 34,651 | $382,188 | 0.5% | 0.9% |
| 28 | Post Falls | 43,391 | $526,055 | 4.0% | 2.0% |
| 29 | Twin Falls | 54,164 | $367,064 | 1.8% | 0.8% |
| 30 | Coeur d’Alene | 56,447 | $599,946 | 1.6% | 3.1% |
| 31 | Pocatello | 57,635 | $336,559 | 0.8% | 0.5% |
| 32 | Caldwell | 66,516 | $396,876 | 4.8% | 1.5% |
| 33 | Idaho Falls | 67,725 | $395,035 | 1.6% | 2.0% |
| 34 | Nampa | 110,319 | $412,277 | 3.8% | 1.2% |
| 35 | Meridian | 130,138 | $526,994 | 4.2% | -0.5% |
| 36 | Boise City | 237,242 | $499,492 | 0.7% | 1.8% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 36 Idaho cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Idaho for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Idaho. 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 224 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Idaho are Kimberly, Rigby, Shelley, Weiser, Fruitland, Preston, Rupert, Emmett, Payette, and Middleton.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
