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 Iowa 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 Iowa 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 Iowa at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Tiffin.
8.8% population growth · 0.8% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
3.5% population growth · 0.0% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.1% population growth · -0.3% home price growth
Cherokee is a city in Cherokee County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,253 at the 2010 Census, down from 5,369 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Cherokee County.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.5% population growth · 1.3% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.6% population growth · 0.7% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
2.7% population growth · -3.1% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.9% population growth · 0.1% home price growth
Manchester is a city in Delaware County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,179 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Delaware County. Manchester is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 20 and State Highway 13, and is the largest community in Delaware County.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.5% population growth · 1.6% home price growth
Iowa Falls is a city in Hardin County, Iowa, United States. Iowa Falls is the home of Ellsworth Community College. It is also a regional transportation center, located along U.S. Routes 20 and 65 and the Canadian National and Union Pacific Railroads. The population was 5,238 at the 2010 census. A landmark in the city is its movie theater. Built as the Metropolitan Opera House in 1899, it presented plays, operas, and vaudeville in the town during the first half of the twentieth century, and today is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.9% population growth · -0.5% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.5% population growth · -3.2% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Iowa’s statewide median.
Iowa statewide median: $231,585
On the map
Where Iowa’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Iowa 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 Iowa. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Iowa 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 Iowa, 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 1002 cities and towns in Iowa, only 85 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 85 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 Tiffin is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Hawkeye State. The median Iowa home is 53 years old — old enough that it pays to compare home warranty plans before something expensive breaks.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Iowa
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiffin | 5,737 | $327,121 | 8.8% | 0.8% |
| 2 | Polk City | 6,037 | $427,587 | 3.5% | 0.0% |
| 3 | Cherokee | 5,154 | $148,066 | -0.1% | -0.3% |
| 4 | Windsor Heights | 5,143 | $282,953 | -0.5% | 1.3% |
| 5 | Sergeant Bluff | 5,171 | $354,762 | 1.6% | 0.7% |
| 6 | Adel | 6,430 | $390,598 | 2.7% | -3.1% |
| 7 | Manchester | 5,191 | $222,974 | 0.9% | 0.1% |
| 8 | Iowa Falls | 5,038 | $130,589 | -0.5% | 1.6% |
| 9 | Spirit Lake | 5,518 | $328,918 | 0.9% | -0.5% |
| 10 | Osceola | 5,523 | $187,628 | 0.5% | -3.2% |
| 11 | Sheldon | 5,474 | $220,403 | 1.6% | 3.5% |
| 12 | Winterset | 5,416 | $289,608 | 0.6% | -0.8% |
| 13 | Red Oak | 5,510 | $136,874 | -0.6% | 3.7% |
| 14 | Glenwood | 5,144 | $310,533 | 0.5% | -0.9% |
| 15 | Clarinda | 5,353 | $125,019 | -0.2% | 0.6% |
| 16 | Algona | 5,377 | $179,883 | -0.7% | -2.5% |
| 17 | Centerville | 5,372 | $80,251 | -0.1% | -5.8% |
| 18 | Anamosa | 5,629 | $243,589 | 1.4% | 4.3% |
| 19 | Estherville | 5,839 | $122,713 | -0.4% | 5.7% |
| 20 | Oelwein | 5,834 | $109,878 | -0.7% | 0.1% |
| 21 | Asbury | 5,989 | $381,428 | 0.7% | 1.6% |
| 22 | Maquoketa | 6,075 | $197,794 | -0.5% | 0.3% |
| 23 | Independence | 6,164 | $216,073 | 0.2% | -0.1% |
| 24 | Orange City | 6,426 | $314,346 | 1.8% | -0.0% |
| 25 | Bondurant | 8,560 | $330,602 | 6.2% | -3.0% |
| 26 | Atlantic | 6,763 | $158,965 | -0.1% | 0.1% |
| 27 | Eldridge | 6,818 | $347,341 | 1.1% | 1.7% |
| 28 | Nevada | 6,983 | $241,439 | 0.4% | 0.3% |
| 29 | Knoxville | 7,473 | $203,230 | -0.3% | 0.3% |
| 30 | Washington | 7,290 | $190,722 | -0.3% | -0.2% |
| 31 | Charles City | 7,232 | $140,721 | -1.2% | 2.1% |
| 32 | Hiawatha | 7,206 | $254,300 | 0.4% | -1.1% |
| 33 | Sioux Center | 8,454 | $345,761 | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| 34 | Clear Lake | 7,607 | $322,831 | 0.1% | -0.3% |
| 35 | Decorah | 7,535 | $304,335 | -0.8% | -0.7% |
| 36 | Perry | 7,985 | $172,452 | 0.7% | 2.6% |
| 37 | Webster City | 7,769 | $147,379 | 0.0% | -0.7% |
| 38 | Creston | 7,435 | $152,979 | -0.4% | 1.1% |
| 39 | Denison | 8,260 | $176,095 | 0.2% | -1.9% |
| 40 | Mount Pleasant | 8,951 | $191,462 | -1.6% | 2.9% |
| 41 | Grinnell | 9,505 | $208,194 | -0.2% | 0.5% |
| 42 | Carroll | 10,208 | $200,081 | -0.5% | -0.8% |
| 43 | Pleasant Hill | 11,136 | $299,730 | 3.1% | -1.0% |
| 44 | Le Mars | 10,640 | $275,107 | 0.4% | 3.0% |
| 45 | Waverly | 10,494 | $271,473 | 0.5% | -1.1% |
| 46 | Keokuk | 9,662 | $80,981 | -0.9% | -0.5% |
| 47 | Pella | 10,720 | $351,502 | 0.9% | 0.2% |
| 48 | Fairfield | 9,456 | $158,194 | 0.2% | 2.1% |
| 49 | Fort Madison | 10,133 | $109,640 | -0.9% | 1.1% |
| 50 | Storm Lake | 11,428 | $177,022 | 1.4% | 0.8% |
| 51 | Spencer | 11,400 | $193,031 | 0.1% | -1.7% |
| 52 | Norwalk | 14,183 | $332,836 | 4.2% | -0.9% |
| 53 | Oskaloosa | 11,504 | $186,483 | 0.1% | 1.8% |
| 54 | Boone | 12,424 | $210,007 | -0.2% | 1.6% |
| 55 | Grimes | 16,366 | $348,193 | 3.5% | -0.5% |
| 56 | Newton | 15,700 | $200,884 | 0.0% | 1.4% |
| 57 | Indianola | 16,044 | $309,171 | 0.8% | 1.3% |
| 58 | Clive | 19,012 | $425,730 | 1.3% | -1.1% |
| 59 | Altoona | 21,495 | $317,902 | 4.4% | -2.0% |
| 60 | North Liberty | 21,125 | $307,636 | 1.7% | 1.8% |
| 61 | Coralville | 23,234 | $256,223 | 1.7% | -0.3% |
| 62 | Johnston | 24,384 | $394,441 | 0.8% | -1.0% |
| 63 | Waukee | 29,236 | $338,881 | 8.4% | -2.5% |
| 64 | Muscatine | 23,489 | $184,866 | -0.3% | 0.8% |
| 65 | Fort Dodge | 24,827 | $129,004 | 0.2% | 1.4% |
| 66 | Ottumwa | 25,430 | $121,425 | 0.3% | 0.5% |
| 67 | Burlington | 23,728 | $123,915 | -0.3% | -0.1% |
| 68 | Clinton | 24,322 | $127,331 | -0.4% | 0.2% |
| 69 | Marshalltown | 27,626 | $173,581 | 0.5% | 1.4% |
| 70 | Mason City | 27,050 | $154,095 | -0.3% | 0.1% |
| 71 | Bettendorf | 39,647 | $328,096 | 0.9% | 3.1% |
| 72 | Marion | 41,896 | $271,355 | 0.5% | 1.2% |
| 73 | Cedar Falls | 40,888 | $259,137 | 0.6% | -0.8% |
| 74 | Urbandale | 46,595 | $349,851 | 1.2% | -0.8% |
| 75 | Dubuque | 59,174 | $245,147 | -0.2% | 0.9% |
| 76 | Council Bluffs | 62,586 | $223,906 | 0.0% | 2.0% |
| 77 | Ankeny | 72,615 | $338,168 | 2.9% | -0.5% |
| 78 | Ames | 67,669 | $274,367 | 2.4% | 0.9% |
| 79 | West Des Moines | 71,083 | $320,156 | 1.7% | -0.7% |
| 80 | Waterloo | 67,008 | $143,280 | 0.1% | -2.5% |
| 81 | Iowa City | 75,752 | $298,092 | 0.6% | 0.7% |
| 82 | Sioux City | 86,101 | $196,299 | 0.5% | 0.3% |
| 83 | Davenport | 100,913 | $187,412 | -0.2% | 2.4% |
| 84 | Cedar Rapids | 137,264 | $204,112 | 0.3% | -0.4% |
| 85 | Des Moines | 212,421 | $208,166 | -0.0% | -0.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 85 Iowa cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Iowa for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Iowa. 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 1002 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Iowa are Tiffin, Polk City, Cherokee, Windsor Heights, Sergeant Bluff, Adel, Manchester, Iowa Falls, Spirit Lake, and Osceola.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy. Not sold on Iowa? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Best Places To Buy A House In Iowa FAQs
What is the best city in Iowa to buy a house?
Tiffin is the best place to buy a house in Iowa for 2026. Its population is growing, home values are rising, and the median home still costs $327,121. Polk City and Cherokee are next on the list.
What are the best cities to buy a home in Iowa?
The best cities to buy a house in Iowa are Tiffin, Polk City, Cherokee, Windsor Heights, Sergeant Bluff, Adel, Manchester, Iowa Falls, Spirit Lake, and Osceola. Only 85 of the 1002 places in Iowa cleared our filters on growth and home prices.
How much does a house cost in Tiffin?
The median home value in Tiffin is $327,121, versus $231,585 across Iowa. Across the full top ten, the median home runs $305,037.
How do you pick the best places to buy a home in Iowa?
We look for Iowa places where the population is growing, home prices are climbing, and homes are still cheap relative to the state average, using Census American Community Survey data. Cities that hit all three get the highest Buy Index scores.
Is this a guarantee home values will go up?
No. This is not investment advice — just where the data points to potential value. The Buy Index says these markets look healthier than most of Iowa, not that any single house is a good deal.
