Best Places to Buy Rental Property in West Virginia (2026)

Start with Huntington. It is the lowest entry price on this list, $137,000 at the median, and its $1,000 median asking rent turns that into 8.8 percent gross, the best return the state's measurable cities offer. Fairmont follows at 8.6 percent, on a $167,500 median price and $1,200 in asking rent. For two of these cities the page also shows a confirmed-close median; in Martinsburg, 90 confirmed lease closes carry a median of $1,750 against a $1,750 asking median. The two samples are not paired, so the gap describes the samples, not the same homes. Measured against the whole state, these are cheap markets: a median of $201,500 here against $258,450 statewide. One more city clears the closings bar but not the rental one and appears in a second table with entry price only.

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. Huntington, 8.8 percent gross

At $137,000 to buy and $1,000 a month to rent, Huntington yields 8.8 percent gross on 332 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $92 per square foot. Full detail is on the Huntington market page.

2. Fairmont, 8.6 percent gross

The numbers: $167,500 median closed price across 275 closings, $1,200 median asking rent across 163 listings, 8.6 percent gross. Full detail is on the Fairmont market page.

3. Parkersburg, 8.2 percent gross

Read Parkersburg's $975 rent as an apartment figure: 66 percent of its listings are apartments or condos. The numbers: $143,000 median closed price across 224 closings, $975 median asking rent across 140 listings, 8.2 percent gross. Full detail is on the Parkersburg market page.

4. Martinsburg, 7.6 percent gross

Martinsburg's confirmed-close median, $1,750 on 90 closes, sits close to its $1,750 asking median; the samples are separate, so read it as agreement between two medians rather than a validated yield. Homes in Martinsburg closed at a median of $277,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,750, a gross yield of 7.6 percent. The Martinsburg market page carries the monthly figures.

5. Charles Town, 6.7 percent gross

Charles Town is one of the cities with a confirmed-close sample: 80 closes with a median of $2,200 beside a $2,100 asking median, a 5 percent difference between two separate samples, not a measured gap on the same listings. Homes in Charles Town closed at a median of $375,116 over the last twelve months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,100, a gross yield of 6.7 percent. See the Charles Town page for the property mix and the price band.

6. Charleston, 6.6 percent gross

At $201,500 to buy and $1,100 a month to rent, Charleston yields 6.6 percent gross on 308 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $115 per square foot. Full detail is on the Charleston market page.

7. Morgantown, 5.3 percent gross

At $273,500 to buy and $1,200 a month to rent, Morgantown yields 5.3 percent gross on 180 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Morgantown market page.

Priced, but too few rentals to rank

These cities cleared 100 tracked closings but fewer than 50 rental listings carried their name in the last twelve months, so no yield is printed for them.

How this ranking is built

• •Cities: every West Virginia 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: 7 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 $258,450 across 8,270 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 West Virginia rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in West Virginia 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 West Virginia cities Resideline tracks by gross rental yield. The West Virginia housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest West Virginia 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.