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 South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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 South Dakota at the moment according to Saturday Night Science? That would be Belle Fourche.
1.1% population growth · 1.9% home price growth
Located in
Butte County, South Dakota
Belle Fourche is a city in and the county seat of Butte County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 5,594 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
7.1% population growth · 2.2% home price growth
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
9.4% population growth · 0.2% home price growth
Harrisburg is a city in Lincoln County, South Dakota, United States and is a suburb of Sioux Falls. The population was 4,089 by the 2010 census, having grown from 958 in 2000 census. The population of the Harrisburg zip code has grown from 2,476 in 2000 to 10,342 in 2010.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-0.4% population growth · -0.2% home price growth
Located in
Meade County, South Dakota
Sturgis is a city in Meade County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,627 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Meade County and is named after Union General Samuel D. Sturgis.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
-1.0% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Lake County, South Dakota
Madison is a city in Lake County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 6,474 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Lake County and is home to Dakota State University.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
3.6% population growth · 3.0% home price growth
Located in
Pennington County, South Dakota
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.0% population growth · -0.7% home price growth
Located in
Minnehaha County, South Dakota
Brandon is a city in Minnehaha County, South Dakota, United States and is the largest suburb of Sioux Falls. Brandon is located five miles east of Sioux Falls. The population was estimated at 9,923 by the United States Census Bureau on July 1, 2016, which was up from 8,785 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.7% population growth · 1.2% home price growth
Located in
Clay County, South Dakota
Vermillion is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, in the southeastern corner of the state of South Dakota, and the eleventh largest city in the state. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 10,571. The city lies atop a bluff near the Missouri River.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
3.0% population growth · -0.1% home price growth
Located in
Lawrence County, South Dakota
Spearfish is a city in Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 10,494 at the 2010 census.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
0.3% population growth · -0.5% home price growth
Located in
Beadle County, South Dakota
Huron is a city in Beadle County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 12,592 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Beadle County. Huron was the home of now-defunct Huron University. The Huron Plainsman, also referred to as the Plainsman, is the newspaper. The first settlement at Huron was made in 1880. The city was named after the Huron Indians. It is currently the ninth largest city in South Dakota, but it once was the fourth. Huron was in the running for capital of South Dakota but lost out to Pierre due to Pierres positioning.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is South Dakota’s statewide median.
South Dakota statewide median: $317,148
On the map
Where South Dakota’s best buys are
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How do you determine the best places to buy a home in South Dakota 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 South Dakota. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in South Dakota 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 South Dakota, 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 381 cities and towns in South Dakota, 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 Belle Fourche is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Mount Rushmore State.
The full plate
Best Places To Buy A Home In South Dakota
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Median Home Price | Population Change | Home Price Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belle Fourche | 5,804 | $334,320 | 1.1% | 1.9% |
| 2 | Tea | 6,786 | $381,056 | 7.1% | 2.2% |
| 3 | Harrisburg | 8,519 | $359,383 | 9.4% | 0.2% |
| 4 | Sturgis | 7,086 | $370,733 | -0.4% | -0.2% |
| 5 | Madison | 6,094 | $263,104 | -1.0% | 1.2% |
| 6 | Box Elder | 12,902 | $367,456 | 3.6% | 3.0% |
| 7 | Brandon | 10,996 | $387,890 | 0.0% | -0.7% |
| 8 | Vermillion | 11,878 | $272,882 | 0.7% | 1.2% |
| 9 | Spearfish | 12,930 | $456,937 | 3.0% | -0.1% |
| 10 | Huron | 14,385 | $171,872 | 0.3% | -0.5% |
| 11 | Pierre | 13,948 | $293,980 | -0.4% | -0.7% |
| 12 | Yankton | 15,540 | $270,787 | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| 13 | Mitchell | 15,649 | $247,683 | 0.1% | -2.5% |
| 14 | Watertown | 23,044 | $304,838 | 0.8% | -2.1% |
| 15 | Brookings | 23,948 | $312,178 | 1.0% | 0.3% |
| 16 | Aberdeen | 28,189 | $240,644 | -0.4% | 1.3% |
| 17 | Rapid City | 77,946 | $361,496 | 1.4% | 0.9% |
| 18 | Sioux Falls | 201,469 | $329,723 | 1.9% | -0.1% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024 via Saturday Night Science. 18 South Dakota cities cleared the filters.
Summary
Summary: The Best Places To Purchase A House In South Dakota for 2026
There’s our analysis of the best places to buy a house in South Dakota. 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 381 places in the state.
The best cities to buy a house in South Dakota are Belle Fourche, Tea, Harrisburg, Sturgis, Madison, Box Elder, Brandon, Vermillion, Spearfish, and Huron.
So if we could rent or buy in these cities, we’d definitely buy.
