Jamestown Tops N.D. Affordability at $197K Median, $868 Rent

For real estate technology builders, Houzeo's Jamestown ranking is less a news item than a product artifact. By combining North Dakota Housing Finance Agency data with layered cost-of-living inputs—groceries, utilities, transportation, and healthcare—it demonstrates the exact type of multi-source, city-level scoring that listing platforms, mortgage fintechs, and relocation tools are racing to productize. Jamestown's repeat number-one placement supplies the hard numbers proptech teams need to test affordability models: a $197,000 median home, $868 monthly rent, and a $2,193 average property tax bill.

Jamestown, North Dakota, has once again been named the most affordable city in the state, according to the real estate platform Houzeo. The 2026 ranking, updated in August, is built on housing data from the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency and cost-of-living figures covering housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, and healthcare. Jamestown's median home price of $197,000 and average monthly rent of $868 both sit well below state averages. Average property taxes in the city come in at $2,193, the lowest in North Dakota, while daily commutes average just 12 minutes. The city also held the same title in last year's report, suggesting the affordability advantage is structural rather than a one-year anomaly.

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Jamestown's repeat number-one placement supplies the hard numbers proptech teams need to test affordability models: a $197,000 median home, $868 monthly rent, and a $2,193 average property tax bill.

For real estate platforms, rankings like this are not purely editorial content. They are data products and lead-generation assets. By aggregating public agency figures and layering cost-of-living indices, Houzeo converts raw housing statistics into a shareable, locally resonant narrative that drives search traffic and positions the platform as a trusted source of market intelligence. The methodology mirrors the pipelines that many proptech companies are building for buyer-side search, rental analytics, relocation tools, and property-level affordability scoring. A repeat winner like Jamestown gives those products a benchmark city with multiple years of supporting data.

The specific numbers matter in operational and investment terms. A $197,000 median home price implies a relatively low entry cost; combined with $868 average monthly rent, it suggests that both ownership and renting remain accessible. The $2,193 average property tax, which is the lowest in the state, reduces recurring ownership costs relative to comparable North Dakota municipalities. The 12-minute commute further suppresses transportation costs and expands the pool of workers and businesses that can access the city. Together these inputs form a total-cost-of-occupancy profile that workforce housing developers, mortgage fintechs, and rental property operators can use in underwriting and market selection.

Still, the broader state context should temper enthusiasm. North Dakota is already a relatively affordable state, so the gap between Jamestown and its in-state peers may be narrower than a national ranking would imply. The report places Jamestown's cost of living 19.9% below the national average, but the two articles do not publish the full list, the year-over-year changes, the sample size, or the exact state averages against which Jamestown is compared. The two source articles are essentially identical, published by local radio station websites, and they cite no independent interviews or third-party verification. That does not invalidate Houzeo's conclusions, but it does mean the coverage is largely syndicated. A more rigorous analysis would require the full distribution of North Dakota city affordability scores, historical price appreciation, renter income data, and inventory levels. Consequently, the ranking is best understood as a directional affordability signal rather than a complete market analysis. Any proptech team using this information in a model should go back to the full Houzeo report and the underlying North Dakota Housing Finance Agency data.