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 Montana 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 Montana 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 Montana at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Hamilton.
3.1% population growth · 1.1% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.8% population growth · -0.5% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.5% population growth · 0.4% home price growth
Columbia Falls is a city in Flathead County, Montana, United States. The population was 4,710 at the 2010 census
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.0% population growth · 7.1% home price growth
Located in
Fergus County, MontanaLewistown is a city in and the county seat of Fergus County, Montana, United States. The population was 5,901 at the 2010 census. Lewistown is located in central Montana, the geographic center of the state, southeast of Great Falls. First planned in 1882, it was the site of an 1880s gold rush.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-1.0% population growth · 1.3% home price growth
Located in
Richland County, MontanaSidney is a city in and the county seat of Richland County, Montana, United States, less than 10mi away from the North Dakota border. The population was 5,191 at the 2010 census. The city lies along the Yellowstone River and is in proximity to the badlands of the Dakotas. Sidney is approximately midway between Glendive, Montana and Williston, North Dakota.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.2% population growth · 0.4% home price growth
Located in
Yellowstone County, MontanaLaurel is a city in Yellowstone County, Montana, United States. It is the third largest community in the Billings Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is located in the Yellowstone Valley, as an east-west terminal division point of the Burlington-Northern Railroad. The population was 6,781 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.7% population growth · 2.4% home price growth
Located in
Park County, MontanaLivingston is a city and the county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. Livingston is located in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. The population was 7,044 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
3.9% population growth · 0.7% home price growth
Located in
Flathead County, MontanaWhitefish is a city in Flathead County, Montana, United States. The population was 6,357 at the 2010 census. It is home to a ski resort on Big Mountain called Whitefish Mountain Resort.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.1% population growth · 6.2% home price growth
Miles City is a city in and the county seat of Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 8,410 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.9% population growth · 0.9% home price growth
Deer Lodge County is a county in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 9,298. It forms a consolidated city-county government with its county seat of Anaconda. The county was founded in 1865.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Montana’s statewide median.
Montana statewide median: $466,917
On the map
Where Montana’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Montana 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 Montana. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Montana 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 Montana, 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 362 cities and towns in Montana, only 18 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 18 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 Hamilton is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Treasure State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Montana
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hamilton | 5,101 | $526,562 | 3.1% | 1.1% |
| 2 | Polson | 5,428 | $560,671 | 1.8% | -0.5% |
| 3 | Columbia Falls | 5,615 | $599,165 | 1.5% | 0.4% |
| 4 | Lewistown | 6,087 | $296,569 | 1.0% | 7.1% |
| 5 | Sidney | 6,171 | $269,780 | -1.0% | 1.3% |
| 6 | Laurel | 7,215 | $374,157 | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| 7 | Livingston | 8,780 | $531,831 | 1.7% | 2.4% |
| 8 | Whitefish | 8,749 | $864,157 | 3.9% | 0.7% |
| 9 | Miles City | 8,407 | $243,450 | -0.1% | 6.2% |
| 10 | Anaconda-Deer Lodge County | 9,597 | $287,878 | 0.9% | 0.9% |
| 11 | Belgrade | 11,872 | $548,236 | 3.9% | -0.5% |
| 12 | Havre | 9,258 | $232,554 | -0.8% | 0.2% |
| 13 | Kalispell | 28,504 | $552,745 | 6.2% | 0.7% |
| 14 | Helena | 33,639 | $474,029 | 1.5% | 0.9% |
| 16 | Bozeman | 56,114 | $724,089 | 1.9% | 0.9% |
| 17 | Great Falls | 60,329 | $334,708 | -0.1% | 1.3% |
| 18 | Missoula | 76,514 | $564,622 | 1.2% | 0.8% |
| 19 | Billings | 119,434 | $392,209 | 0.9% | -0.4% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 18 Montana cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Montana for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Montana. 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 362 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Montana are Hamilton, Polson, Columbia Falls, Lewistown, Sidney, Laurel, Livingston, Whitefish, Miles City, and Anaconda-Deer Lodge County.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
