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 Nevada 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 Nevada 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 Nevada at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Carlin.
-3.5% population growth · 6.3% home price growth
Carlin is a small city located near the western border of Elko County in northeast Nevada, 23 miles west of the city of Elko. It is part of the Elko Micropolitan Statistical Area. Carlin sits along Interstate 80 at an elevation of approximately 4,900 feet. As of the 2010 census, its population was 2,368, up from 2,161 at the 2000 census. The city was named for Civil War general William Passmore Carlin. Its slogan is “Where the Train Stops…And the Gold Rush Begins”.
2.0% population growth · 26.5% home price growth
-2.6% population growth · 0.6% home price growth
Data | Movers
-2.3% population growth · 7.4% home price growth
0.4% population growth · 2.0% home price growth
Yerington is a city in Lyon County, Nevada, United States. The population was 3,048 at the 2010 census. It is named after Henry M. Yerington, Superintendent of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad from 1868 to 1910. The city incorporated in 1907. It is the current county seat of Lyon County, the first county seat being established at Dayton on November 29, 1861. After the Dayton Court House burned down in 1909, the seat was moved to Yerington in 1911.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
12.0% population growth · 1.5% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
7.0% population growth · nan% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-11.1% population growth · 5.3% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.3% population growth · 3.3% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.2% population growth · 1.1% home price growth
West Wendover is a small city in Elko County, Nevada, United States. The population was 4,410 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Elko micropolitan area. West Wendover is located on the eastern border of Nevada and the western edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert and is contiguous with Wendover, Utah, with which it is sometimes confused. Interstate 80 runs just north of the cities, while Interstate 80 Business runs through the two cities.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Nevada’s statewide median.
Nevada statewide median: $446,865
On the map
Where Nevada’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Nevada 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 Nevada. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Nevada 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 Nevada, 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 2,000 people.
So of the 124 cities and towns in Nevada, only 43 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 43 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 Carlin is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Silver State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Nevada
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlin | 2,088 | $215,968 | -3.5% | 6.3% |
| 2 | Kingsbury | 2,209 | $1,105,564 | 2.0% | 26.5% |
| 3 | Washoe Valley | 3,315 | $625,754 | -2.6% | 0.6% |
| 4 | Hawthorne | 2,809 | $129,527 | -2.3% | 7.4% |
| 5 | Yerington | 3,150 | $312,509 | 0.4% | 2.0% |
| 6 | Minden | 3,707 | $691,908 | 12.0% | 1.5% |
| 7 | Nellis AFB | 5,087 | $0 | 7.0% | |
| 8 | Battle Mountain | 3,518 | $284,969 | -11.1% | 5.3% |
| 9 | Ely | 3,929 | $204,821 | -0.3% | 3.3% |
| 10 | West Wendover | 4,514 | $295,977 | 0.2% | 1.1% |
| 11 | Silver Springs | 5,060 | $355,850 | -8.4% | 3.2% |
| 12 | Lemmon Valley | 4,412 | $394,111 | 0.6% | 0.7% |
| 13 | Gardnerville | 5,486 | $606,750 | -5.6% | 1.6% |
| 14 | Johnson Lane | 6,467 | $784,220 | 1.0% | 0.9% |
| 15 | Indian Hills | 5,527 | $496,539 | -4.2% | -3.7% |
| 16 | Moapa Valley | 6,684 | $372,045 | -0.2% | -6.0% |
| 17 | Winnemucca | 8,361 | $349,754 | -0.4% | 1.6% |
| 18 | Laughlin | 8,789 | $259,679 | 1.7% | 0.3% |
| 19 | Fallon | 9,463 | $391,150 | 1.0% | 2.3% |
| 20 | Incline Village | 9,272 | $1,474,427 | 1.3% | 1.0% |
| 21 | Cold Springs | 11,321 | $444,709 | 0.9% | -3.0% |
| 22 | Gardnerville Ranchos | 12,114 | $498,797 | -0.6% | -2.2% |
| 23 | Dayton | 15,781 | $453,484 | -0.6% | 1.3% |
| 24 | Spring Creek | 14,739 | $404,703 | -1.5% | 1.2% |
| 25 | Spanish Springs | 17,980 | $640,328 | 2.7% | -2.8% |
| 26 | Boulder City | 14,919 | $470,943 | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 27 | Mesquite | 22,059 | $380,205 | 3.5% | -0.9% |
| 28 | Elko | 20,696 | $360,731 | 0.3% | 2.2% |
| 29 | Fernley | 24,225 | $395,925 | 2.5% | 1.5% |
| 30 | Sun Valley | 22,228 | $434,991 | -2.1% | 1.9% |
| 31 | Summerlin South | 31,354 | $690,105 | 4.3% | -2.0% |
| 32 | Winchester | 37,081 | $310,773 | -1.8% | -1.4% |
| 33 | Pahrump | 47,347 | $368,640 | 3.4% | 0.2% |
| 34 | Whitney | 47,221 | $337,663 | 2.1% | 2.7% |
| 36 | Sparks | 110,024 | $529,283 | 0.8% | 2.1% |
| 37 | Paradise | 185,913 | $394,317 | -0.1% | 0.3% |
| 38 | Sunrise Manor | 200,218 | $328,426 | 0.6% | 2.9% |
| 39 | Enterprise | 240,464 | $488,021 | 3.6% | -1.0% |
| 40 | Spring Valley | 219,187 | $445,223 | -0.3% | -0.5% |
| 41 | North Las Vegas | 278,595 | $407,047 | 2.9% | -0.2% |
| 42 | Reno | 273,212 | $567,857 | 1.6% | 1.7% |
| 43 | Henderson | 332,141 | $486,156 | 2.3% | -0.2% |
| 44 | Las Vegas | 660,400 | $426,583 | 1.5% | -0.1% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 43 Nevada cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Nevada for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Nevada. 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 124 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Nevada are Carlin, Kingsbury, Washoe Valley, Hawthorne, Yerington, Minden, Nellis AFB, Battle Mountain, Ely, and West Wendover.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
