Best Places to Buy Rental Property in Montana (2026)

Price and rent point the same way in Montana: Butte, the cheapest city with enough data, also returns the most, 5.7 percent gross on a $317,000 median price and $1,495 in asking rent. Great Falls is close behind at 5.5 percent. One caution on the rent side: in Bozeman houses asked a median of $2,950 while the all-type median was $2,324. For a house, compare house rents with house sale prices; substituting the house rent into a ratio whose denominator is a mixed sale median only makes the number look better, not more representative. Missoula, the busiest market on the list with about 90 closings a month, sits eighth of 9 at 3.7 percent.

The ranking

Gross yield here is an asking rental yield screen: twelve times the median asking rent over the median closed price, before taxes, insurance, vacancy, management or repairs. Sales use municipal boundaries. Rental listings use the associated city name and may cover a wider postal area. The ratio therefore compares related, but not perfectly matched, market samples, and a home bought at the median price does not necessarily earn the median rent. Confirmed-close medians appear where at least 30 confirmed lease closes were recorded in the window.

City by city

1. Butte, 5.7 percent gross

Homes in Butte closed at a median of $317,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,495, a gross yield of 5.7 percent. Full detail is on the Butte market page.

2. Great Falls, 5.5 percent gross

The numbers: $339,500 median closed price across 511 closings, $1,560 median asking rent across 630 listings, 5.5 percent gross. Full detail is on the Great Falls market page.

3. Kalispell, 4.9 percent gross

At $525,000 to buy and $2,125 a month to rent, Kalispell yields 4.9 percent gross on 270 tracked closings. See the Kalispell page for the property mix and the price band.

4. Helena, 4.7 percent gross

Helena's rental sample is 61 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $1,696 asking median understates what a house rents for there: houses asked $2,225. At $435,500 to buy and $1,696 a month to rent, Helena yields 4.7 percent gross on 203 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $241 per square foot. Full detail is on the Helena market page.

5. Belgrade, 4.6 percent gross

At $550,000 to buy and $2,100 a month to rent, Belgrade yields 4.6 percent gross on 173 tracked closings. The Belgrade market page carries the monthly figures.

6. Billings, 4.6 percent gross

Homes in Billings closed at a median of $399,900 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,525, a gross yield of 4.6 percent. Houses there closed at about $189 per square foot. Full detail is on the Billings market page.

7. Bozeman, 4.2 percent gross

The numbers: $669,000 median closed price across 443 closings, $2,324 median asking rent across 1,827 listings, 4.2 percent gross. Houses there closed at about $360 per square foot. The Bozeman market page carries the monthly figures.

8. Missoula, 3.7 percent gross

Read Missoula's $1,695 rent as an apartment figure: 67 percent of its listings are apartments or condos, and the house median is $2,595. Homes in Missoula closed at a median of $543,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,695, a gross yield of 3.7 percent. Houses there closed at about $323 per square foot. The Missoula market page carries the monthly figures.

9. Whitefish, 3.0 percent gross

The numbers: $991,000 median closed price across 256 closings, $2,500 median asking rent across 352 listings, 3.0 percent gross. Houses there closed at about $550 per square foot. The Whitefish market page carries the monthly figures.

How this ranking is built

• •Cities: every Montana city where Resideline tracked at least 100 closings inside the municipal boundary in its reporting window (six or twelve months) and at least 50 rental listings under the city's name since September 10, 2025: 9 cities qualify.
• •Prices: the median price homes closed at inside the city limits, from Resideline's tracked closings; the state comparison uses the statewide median of $549,000 across 5,267 closings.
• •Rents: the median advertised rent on rental listings Resideline tracked in the last twelve months, all property types, measured on the listings that carry the city's name (a postal footprint, wider than the city line in some places).
• •Confirmed-close medians: Observed rent blends two kinds of record: confirmed lease closes extracted from property records, and the final asking rent on listings that left Resideline tracking without a recorded close. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed closes in the window, their median is printed beside the asking figure; in the last twelve months about a quarter of Resideline's close episodes are confirmed closes. The asking and confirmed-close samples are separate, not paired, so a difference between their medians is not a measured gap on the same listings.
• •What is missing: taxes, insurance, vacancy, management and repairs, which turn a gross yield into a net one, and the unit mix, which differs between what sells and what rents.

Sources and related pages

• •Resideline tracked closings inside city limits (window per city, updated September 10, 2026) and rental listings since September 10, 2025; confirmed lease closes extracted from property records.
• •More Montana rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in Montana ranks the same kind of list with each city's price per square foot for houses, realized appreciation and days to contract beside the median, and Cap Rate by City ranks the Montana cities Resideline tracks by gross rental yield. The Montana housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest Montana markets by closings.
• •Asking rent vs observed rent compares live asking rents with final asking rents under that study's own definition; it says nothing about confirmed lease closes.

Prepared with Resideline's research pipeline and reviewed by Jeffrey Batista, Resideline's founder.