Best Real Estate Markets in North Dakota 2026: PropertyIQ Scores for All 8 ND Metros

Fargo is North Dakota's largest metro by a wide margin, home to Fargo-Moorhead's regional hospital systems and North Dakota State University, and the metro most people mean when they say "North Dakota real estate." If you built an investment thesis around the state's biggest, most recognizable city, the PropertyIQ Score for the best real estate markets in North Dakota in 2026 would talk you out of it.

As of June 30, 2026, Fargo scores 58 out of 100 -- a grade of F, the second-lowest score in the state. Meanwhile, three much smaller metros score in the 90s: Grand Forks at 96, Minot at 94, and Jamestown at 91. That is a 38-point gap between North Dakota's biggest city and its highest-scoring market, and it is not a fluke of one bad month -- it shows up across the underlying supply and demand data for each metro.

Here is the full breakdown of how PropertyIQ scores all eight North Dakota metros as of June 30, 2026.

North Dakota PropertyIQ Scores at a Glance

All scores and prices are as of June 30, 2026.

The spread here is unusually wide. Wahpeton's 20 and Grand Forks' 96 are 76 points apart, across just eight metros in one small state. For comparison, the eight major California metros PropertyIQ covers span only 21 points (78 to 99). North Dakota's smaller, thinner markets are far more differentiated from one another than a bigger state's major metros tend to be.

Grand Forks: Score 96

Grand Forks scores 96 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026, the highest score in the state. The median home value is $282,435. Grand Forks is anchored by the University of North Dakota and Grand Forks Air Force Base, giving the metro's roughly 103,700 residents a steadier employment base than most markets its size.

The score is built on a 12.7% year-over-year home-value gain and 3.18% momentum over the trailing three months, both strong relative to the rest of the state. For-sale inventory sits at just 192 units, down nearly 15% from a year ago, while the price-reduced share is a modest 10.65% and homes move in a median of 45 days.

The score has been volatile month to month -- it dipped to 77 in February 2026 before climbing back to 96 by June -- which is typical of a metro where a handful of extra listings or sales can swing the underlying inputs. The three-month trend is up 18 points, from 78 in March to 96 in June.

Minot: Score 94

Minot scores 94 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026. The median home value is $273,614, the middle value among the state's three A/A--grade metros. Minot, home to Minot Air Force Base, has the highest median household income of that top-scoring trio at $79,195, well above Grand Forks' $68,653 and Jamestown's $60,172.

What stands out in Minot's data is absorption. The pending ratio is 1.14 -- more homes under contract than actively for sale -- and the median days on market is just 34, the fastest-moving market in the state. The price-reduced share is a low 9.78%, even as new listings rose nearly 39% year over year, suggesting new supply is being absorbed almost as fast as it arrives rather than piling up.

The three-month trend is the strongest gain in the state: up 23 points, from 71 in March 2026 to 94 in June. Minot's year-over-year home-value momentum feeding the score (7.8%) is actually more modest than Grand Forks' or Jamestown's -- it's the combination of tight inventory and fast absorption that is driving the score higher.

Jamestown: Score 91

Jamestown scores 91 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026. The median home value is $233,382, the second-lowest of any metro in this dataset, just above Wahpeton. Jamestown is also the smallest metro PropertyIQ covers in North Dakota, with a population of roughly 21,500.

Jamestown posts the lowest price-reduced share in the state at 6.73%, and inventory is extremely thin: just 29 homes for sale and 26 new listings in a single month. In a market this size, a handful of transactions can move every underlying number, and the score history shows it -- Jamestown touched 99 in January 2026, fell to 61 in February, and has bounced between the 60s and 90s every month since, landing at 91 in June.

The three-month trend reads as stable (91 in both March and June 2026), but that stability is the net result of sharp swings in between, not a quiet, steady market.

Bismarck: Score 78

Bismarck scores 78 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026. The median home value is $360,301, the highest in the state, with the highest price per square foot in the dataset at $203. As the state capital and second-largest metro covered here (population roughly 134,300), Bismarck also has the highest homeownership rate in the group at 72.7%.

The C+ grade reflects a market with real demand but less urgency than the top tier: the price-reduced share is 14.13%, days on market run 43, and PropertyIQ's overvalued estimate puts Bismarck 22.6% above its estimated fair value, the second-highest reading in the state behind Fargo. That combination -- solid fundamentals, but a market priced closer to its ceiling -- is consistent with a capital-city economy of stable government employment rather than a market compounding rapidly.

The three-month trend is flat (78 to 78), though the score slipped from 84 in May to 78 in June, a one-month pullback worth watching in next month's update.

Dickinson: Score 77

Dickinson scores 77 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026. The median home value is $328,142. Dickinson sits in western North Dakota's Bakken oil patch, and it shows in the income data: median household income of $82,133 is the third-highest of any ND metro covered, behind only Williston and Bismarck.

Dickinson's price-reduced share of 17.85% is the highest of any metro scoring above 70, and days on market at 50 run above the state's leading markets. New listings fell nearly 35% year over year even as existing inventory declined a more modest 6.67%, a pattern consistent with a market that's tightening on the supply side without yet translating that scarcity into faster sales or fewer price cuts.

The three-month trend is essentially flat, up 1 point from 76 in March to 77 in June, after a stretch in mid-to-late 2025 when the score ran considerably hotter (97-98 in August and July 2025).

Williston: Score 73

Williston scores 73 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026. The median home value is $355,688, the second-highest in the state. Williston sits at the center of the Bakken shale play and carries the highest median household income of any North Dakota metro in this dataset at $90,224.

The C grade marks a real cooldown. Three-month home-value momentum is essentially flat at -0.02%, the price-reduced share is 12.3%, and for-sale inventory climbed nearly 13% year over year to 79 units -- new supply arriving faster than it's being absorbed. That's a meaningful shift for a market that scored in the mid-to-high 90s for most of the second half of 2025.

The three-month trend confirms it: down 19 points, from 92 in March 2026 to 73 in June, the second-steepest decline of any metro in the state. Williston is the clearest example in this dataset of a market moving from very strong to merely average in a single quarter.

Fargo: Score 58

Fargo scores 58 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026, an F grade for North Dakota's largest and most recognizable metro. The median home value is $329,181. With roughly 254,900 residents, Fargo is nearly twice the size of Bismarck, the state's next-largest metro in this dataset.

Fargo's problem is supply outrunning demand. For-sale inventory sits at 730 units -- more than double any other North Dakota metro covered here -- against a pending ratio of just 0.82, meaning listings are piling up faster than buyers are absorbing them. The price-reduced share is 14.47%, and PropertyIQ's overvalued estimate puts Fargo 24.5% above fair value, the highest reading of any ND metro. Realtor.com's own market-hotness data corroborates the story independently: Fargo's demand sub-score (43.1) trails its supply sub-score (51.8), the same imbalance showing up in a completely separate dataset.

The three-month trend is down slightly (59 to 58), continuing a slide from a peak of 90 in December 2025. Fargo's size and name recognition make it the default choice for out-of-state investors, but the June 2026 data says the state's smaller metros are absorbing demand more efficiently right now.

Wahpeton: Score 20

Wahpeton scores 20 out of 100 as of June 30, 2026, the weakest market in North Dakota and an F grade. The median home value is $231,048, the lowest of any metro in this dataset, just below Jamestown's $233,382. Wahpeton's population, at roughly 23,000, is nearly identical to Jamestown's (21,500) -- yet the two markets land at opposite ends of the state's score range, which is itself a useful reminder that a metro's size doesn't determine its score.

The data shows a market that has genuinely stalled. Median days on market is 122 -- more than double the next-highest reading in the state (Dickinson's 50) -- and the pending ratio is just 0.36, the lowest of any ND metro, meaning very little of the active inventory is actually under contract. Only 16 new listings and 28 pending listings moved through the market in the month, with a price-reduced share of 14.72%.

The three-month trend is the steepest decline in the dataset: down 23 points, from 43 in March 2026 to 20 in June, continuing a slide from a 96 peak as recently as November and December 2025.

What the North Dakota Scores Tell You

The clearest lesson in this dataset is that a metro's size tells you almost nothing about its PropertyIQ score. Fargo, the state's largest metro at roughly 254,900 people, scores 58. Jamestown, at 21,500 people, scores 91. Wahpeton, at roughly 23,000 people -- essentially the same size as Jamestown -- scores 20. Whatever is driving these scores, it isn't population.

What is driving them is absorption: how fast local inventory is turning into pending sales versus piling up unsold. Minot's 1.14 pending ratio and 34-day median time on market put it near the top of the state. Fargo's 0.82 pending ratio against 730 active listings, and Wahpeton's 0.36 pending ratio against a 122-day median time on market, sit at the bottom. Those are two very different flavors of "weak" -- Fargo is a large market absorbing supply too slowly, Wahpeton is a small market that has nearly stopped moving -- but both show up as a failing grade.

The Bakken energy-corridor metros, Dickinson and Williston, illustrate the same disconnect. Williston posts the single highest median household income in the state ($90,224), and Dickinson's $82,133 ranks third behind only Bismarck. Both still land in the middle of the score range, cooling from considerably hotter readings in mid-to-late 2025. High incomes and energy-sector employment haven't insulated either market from a supply-side pullback.

All eight scores carry PropertyIQ's top confidence grade (A, 100% confidence), so none of this spread reflects thin or unreliable data -- it reflects genuinely different market conditions across a state that gets treated, in most national coverage, as a single undifferentiated market.

How PropertyIQ Scores North Dakota Markets

PropertyIQ scores markets on a 0-100 scale where 50 represents the state average. A score above 50 means above-average market conditions compared to the North Dakota baseline... The score is updated monthly and is built from a market's demand signal -- home-value momentum, pending ratios, inventory trends, days on market, and the share of listings cutting price, drawn from Zillow and Realtor.com data. It is a forward-looking estimate of how a market is likely to perform over roughly the next three years relative to its state, where 50 equals the state average.