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 Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Verdigris.
2.5% population growth · 0.9% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.2% population growth · -0.5% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.1% population growth · -1.3% home price growth
Lone Grove is a city in Carter County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 5,054 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Micropolitan Statistical Area of Ardmore.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.0% population growth · 1.0% home price growth
Hugo is a city and county seat of Choctaw County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located in southeastern Oklahoma about 9 miles north of the Texas state line. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 5,310.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.4% population growth · 5.1% home price growth
Located in
Craig County, Oklahoma
Vinita is a city in south-central Craig County, in northeastern Oklahoma, United States. It is the county seat of Craig County. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,743, a decrease of 11.22 percent from 6,469 at the 2000 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.4% population growth · -0.5% home price growth
Located in
Okmulgee County, Oklahoma
Henryetta is a city in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 5,510 at the 2010 census, down 9.6 percent from 6,096 at the 2000 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.2% population growth · 4.1% home price growth
Located in
Hughes County, Oklahoma
Holdenville is a city in and county seat of Hughes County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 5,771 at the 2010 census, an increase of 22 percent from 4,732 at the 2000 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.5% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Garvin County, Oklahoma
Pauls Valley is a city in and the county seat of Garvin County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 6,187 at the 2010 census, a decline of 1.1 percent from 6,256 at the 2000 census. It was settled by and named for Smith Paul, a North Carolina native who married a Chickasaw woman and became a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation before the Civil War. The town economy is largely based on agriculture and oil production.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.8% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Oklahoma County, Oklahoma
Harrah is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Located 25 miles east of downtown Oklahoma City, Harrah had a population of 5,095 people as of 2012.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
1.3% population growth · 0.3% home price growth
Located in
McClain County, Oklahoma
Purcell is a city in McClain County, Oklahoma, United States, and the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 5,884.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Oklahoma’s statewide median.
Oklahoma statewide median: $220,468
On the map
Where Oklahoma’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma, 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 728 cities and towns in Oklahoma, only 74 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 74 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 Verdigris is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Sooner State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In Oklahoma
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verdigris | 5,637 | $252,799 | 2.5% | 0.9% |
| 2 | Kingfisher | 5,026 | $223,159 | 1.2% | -0.5% |
| 3 | Lone Grove | 5,125 | $218,357 | 1.1% | -1.3% |
| 4 | Hugo | 5,182 | $118,771 | -0.0% | 1.0% |
| 5 | Vinita | 5,300 | $193,538 | 1.4% | 5.1% |
| 6 | Henryetta | 5,608 | $110,363 | -0.4% | -0.5% |
| 7 | Holdenville | 5,902 | $58,838 | -0.2% | 4.1% |
| 8 | Pauls Valley | 6,062 | $145,919 | 0.5% | 1.2% |
| 9 | Harrah | 6,684 | $244,396 | 4.8% | 1.2% |
| 10 | Purcell | 6,803 | $225,542 | 1.3% | 0.3% |
| 11 | Anadarko | 5,572 | $67,936 | -1.0% | -1.4% |
| 12 | Blackwell | 6,042 | $63,903 | -0.8% | 5.8% |
| 13 | Tecumseh | 6,332 | $129,935 | 0.2% | -2.3% |
| 14 | Idabel | 6,987 | $138,276 | 0.4% | 9.2% |
| 15 | Noble | 7,493 | $208,255 | 2.1% | 0.3% |
| 16 | Grove | 7,176 | $292,727 | 1.1% | 0.9% |
| 17 | Collinsville | 8,878 | $282,492 | 4.8% | 1.3% |
| 18 | Seminole | 7,194 | $128,772 | 0.5% | 5.2% |
| 19 | Tuttle | 8,040 | $326,451 | 3.3% | 0.3% |
| 20 | Cushing | 8,367 | $140,272 | 0.4% | 2.2% |
| 21 | Catoosa | 7,496 | $228,732 | -1.8% | 0.5% |
| 22 | Piedmont | 8,342 | $340,623 | 4.6% | 0.3% |
| 23 | Blanchard | 9,215 | $319,913 | -0.7% | 0.4% |
| 24 | Sallisaw | 8,605 | $182,769 | 0.6% | 3.6% |
| 25 | Poteau | 8,959 | $186,457 | 0.6% | 4.4% |
| 26 | Wagoner | 8,082 | $183,724 | 1.9% | 4.9% |
| 27 | Clinton | 8,388 | $114,142 | -0.9% | -0.8% |
| 28 | Pryor Creek | 9,569 | $183,613 | 0.5% | 7.9% |
| 29 | The Village | 9,447 | $233,709 | -0.2% | 5.4% |
| 30 | Coweta | 10,433 | $268,321 | 2.7% | 0.2% |
| 31 | Warr Acres | 10,466 | $180,177 | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| 32 | Newcastle | 13,001 | $287,727 | 6.2% | -1.8% |
| 33 | Guthrie | 11,243 | $249,714 | 2.0% | 4.5% |
| 34 | Guymon | 12,539 | $170,436 | -0.5% | 0.8% |
| 35 | Elk City | 11,361 | $167,508 | -0.4% | 2.3% |
| 36 | Okmulgee | 11,348 | $106,354 | -0.2% | -2.5% |
| 37 | Weatherford | 12,004 | $232,157 | -0.1% | 2.8% |
| 38 | Woodward | 11,882 | $133,256 | -0.8% | 2.2% |
| 39 | Choctaw | 12,303 | $302,582 | 0.8% | 1.1% |
| 40 | Miami | 12,926 | $126,482 | -0.3% | 6.3% |
| 41 | Glenpool | 14,151 | $242,874 | 1.9% | 2.0% |
| 42 | Chickasha | 16,539 | $155,772 | 1.2% | 2.9% |
| 43 | Tahlequah | 16,935 | $193,816 | 2.6% | 2.4% |
| 44 | Ada | 16,575 | $180,732 | 0.2% | 1.8% |
| 45 | McAlester | 18,111 | $155,080 | 0.1% | 2.3% |
| 46 | Durant | 19,746 | $223,126 | 2.8% | -1.2% |
| 47 | Altus | 18,646 | $106,431 | -0.1% | 0.3% |
| 48 | Claremore | 20,166 | $257,872 | 1.2% | 0.5% |
| 49 | Bethany | 20,560 | $178,150 | -0.2% | 1.6% |
| 50 | El Reno | 18,557 | $179,646 | 3.6% | 1.7% |
| 51 | Sand Springs | 20,117 | $236,865 | 0.7% | 3.1% |
| 52 | Sapulpa | 22,570 | $212,650 | 1.4% | 0.1% |
| 53 | Del City | 21,494 | $139,300 | -0.3% | 1.1% |
| 54 | Mustang | 22,192 | $277,553 | 4.2% | -0.1% |
| 55 | Duncan | 22,958 | $135,089 | 0.4% | 2.9% |
| 56 | Jenks | 27,102 | $352,171 | 2.2% | 0.9% |
| 57 | Ponca City | 24,326 | $133,083 | -0.2% | 2.3% |
| 58 | Ardmore | 24,877 | $152,584 | 0.5% | -4.0% |
| 59 | Bixby | 30,155 | $331,056 | 2.6% | 1.8% |
| 60 | Yukon | 25,529 | $273,583 | 2.9% | 0.4% |
| 61 | Shawnee | 31,671 | $178,527 | 0.5% | 2.4% |
| 62 | Owasso | 40,151 | $315,428 | 2.9% | 0.6% |
| 63 | Bartlesville | 37,878 | $184,330 | 0.8% | 0.7% |
| 64 | Muskogee | 36,758 | $141,346 | -0.2% | 1.2% |
| 65 | Enid | 50,653 | $135,597 | -0.3% | 1.4% |
| 66 | Stillwater | 49,269 | $263,398 | 0.9% | 2.2% |
| 67 | Midwest City | 58,297 | $167,855 | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| 68 | Moore | 63,420 | $222,549 | 0.6% | 1.0% |
| 69 | Edmond | 96,825 | $353,954 | 1.3% | 0.9% |
| 70 | Lawton | 90,595 | $139,275 | -0.1% | 3.1% |
| 71 | Broken Arrow | 118,180 | $286,846 | 2.0% | 1.4% |
| 72 | Norman | 129,672 | $262,839 | 0.7% | 1.2% |
| 73 | Tulsa | 413,794 | $217,450 | 0.4% | 2.3% |
| 74 | Oklahoma City | 697,125 | $206,713 | 1.2% | 1.7% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 74 Oklahoma cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In Oklahoma for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Oklahoma. 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 728 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in Oklahoma are Verdigris, Kingfisher, Lone Grove, Hugo, Vinita, Henryetta, Holdenville, Pauls Valley, Harrah, and Purcell.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
