Faro Labs / Markets / Fargo, ND
Fargo real estate investment market
What a typical rental in Fargo, North Dakota costs, rents for, and returns: underwritten by Faro's own engine, not a scraped summary.
Returns assume 20% down at 6.75% over 30 years, 7% vacancy, and standard operating costs: Faro's default assumptions, the same ones every report starts from. Home value and rent trends as of 2026-05-31.
Appreciation market
A typical Fargo rental runs $1,233 short each month at market rent, so the case for buying rests on values rising: they moved 3.6% over the last year. That is a bet on the market rather than on the building, and it needs reserves deep enough to fund the shortfall.
The price a deal actually works at
Faro models five price points for Fargo, from a weak buy to a strong one. The market-rate deal is $322,501; a good buy is $290,251 and a great one $258,001 roughly 20% below market value. Those are the bars a specific listing gets measured against when you run it.
How Fargo compares
Of the 210 markets Faro publishes, Fargo is the 130th most expensive to buy into: 19% below the median covered market, and the 177th strongest on rent-to-price. It's the only North Dakota market we currently cover. On the last year of home-value change it ranks 17th.
To break even at the default financing, a typical Fargo property would need about $2,630 a month in rent: $1,522 more than the $1,108 the market currently supports.
What each tier costs in Fargo
Faro models five price points per market. A listing gets measured against these bars, not against a national average.
| Tier | Purchase price | Market rent | vs. market rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weak buy | $354,751 | $1,053/mo | +10% |
| Fair buy | $338,626 | $1,086/mo | +5% |
| Market rate | $322,501 | $1,108/mo | — |
| Good buy | $290,251 | $1,163/mo | -10% |
| Great buy | $258,001 | $1,219/mo | -20% |
A typical Fargo deal, underwritten
The market-rate property above, run through the same engine every Faro report uses.
| Purchase price | $322,501 |
|---|---|
| Monthly rent | $1,108 |
| Cash required (20% down + 3% closing) | $74,175 |
| Net operating income | $5,287/yr |
| Monthly cash flow | -$1,233 |
| Cap rate | 1.6% |
| Cash-on-cash return | −19.9% |
| DSCR | 0.26 |
What it would take to break even
A typical Fargo property would need about $2,630 a month to cover itself at the default financing: 137% above the $1,108 the market currently supports. That gap is the honest size of the problem: it isn't closed by trimming an expense line, it's closed by buying meaningfully below market, putting more down, or finding a property that rents well above its market's median.
Fargo investor questions
Is Fargo a good place to buy rental property?
A typical Fargo rental at $322,501 renting for $1,108 a month returns 1.6% on a cap-rate basis and runs short by $1,233 a month at 20% down. Individual deals vary far more than markets do, which is the whole reason to underwrite a specific address.
Can you cash-flow a rental in Fargo?
Not at the market's own price and rent. A typical property runs $1,233 short each month. It would need about $2,630 in rent to break even. Deals that work here are bought below market rather than at it, which is what the price ladder above is for.
Are rents going up in Fargo?
Rents moved up 4.2% over the last year, measured across 3 ZIP codes. The typical market-rate rental sits at $1,108 a month.
Where do these numbers come from?
Price and rent come from a modeled city-level benchmark dataset; the year-over-year trends are Zillow's ZHVI and ZORI indices, taken as the median across every covered ZIP so one unusual ZIP can't swing the figure. Every return metric is computed by Faro's own underwriting engine. Days on market and sale-to-list aren't shown because we have no city-level source for them we'd stand behind.
Run the numbers yourself
A market average is not a deal.
Paste a real Fargo listing and Faro underwrites that specific property from its own comps, with a target price you can actually offer.
Estimates for analysis and educational use only: not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Verify every number independently before making a purchase decision.