Rapid City, South Dakota.
Typical home $360,913 (+1.9% in a year), asking rent $1,445 (+4.6%). Rapid City, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,062 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,576 +2%
- $354,338$360,913 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,773 +27%
- $284,140$360,913 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Rapid City$1,894
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Rapid City, SD rose 1.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Rapid City, SD rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Rapid City runs $1,161/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,225 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,606 a month against $1,445 rent: a $1,894 mortgage payment, plus $325 property tax and $386 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Rapid City
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,606
- Renting$1,445
- Mortgage only$1,894
Property tax · $325/mo 1.08% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Pennington County, SD
Insurance & upkeep · $386/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Rapid City, Pennington County, South Dakota
Rapid City is a city of 74,703 people in Pennington County. Half its households earn more than $70,870 a year and half less, against $74,517 across Pennington County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Rapid City was 2.1% in August 2026, and Pennington County had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Rapid City is the largest city in western South Dakota, and its residents tend to be of middle age, much like the country as a whole. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though renting is common too. Incomes run a little below the county's, and a four-year degree is held by a fair share of adults. Winters are cold and snowy, with a January that stays well below freezing, while July brings warm days and the year is fairly dry overall.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and professional and business services. Among the biggest workplaces in town are Monument Health Rapid City Hospital, the Rapid City Area School District and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Unemployment is low and unchanged from a year earlier, and the commute is short, so most people are home again soon after work.
Things to do. In or beside town, Dinosaur Park is a museum-style outdoor attraction and The Journey Museum and Gardens combines a museum with gardens. A short drive away, Reptile Gardens is a zoo. For a longer outing, Custer State Park and Black Hills National Forest are protected areas that call for more of a drive.
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- 32,368households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pennington County had 62,445 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 54 inches of snow and 20 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rapid City Weather Office weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rapid City
- Monument Health Rapid City HospitalGeneral hospital2,921FTE
- Rapid City Area School District 51-4School district1,574FTE
- Quanta ServicesPower and communication line and related structures construction572
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters530
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters467
- South Dakota School of Mines and TechnologyUniversity or college458
- Black Hills Surgical HospitalGeneral hospital348FTE
- Menards"home centers"277
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 100 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 11,008 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Ice stormsrelatively high in parts of Rapid CityRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rapid City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Pennington County and the Rapid City, SD metro.
Rapid City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rapid City$360,913
- South Dakota$317,874
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Rapid City listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — the market is heating up.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Rapid City29.37%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Rapid City22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Rapid City451
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Rapid City142
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Rapid City$370,863
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Rapid City97.84%
Zip codes with a Rapid City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rapid City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Rapid City
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57701 | Rapid City | 45,795 | $1,397 | $299,906 |
| 57702 | Rapid City | 35,595 | $1,465 | $451,766 |
| 57703 | Rapid City | 18,013 | $1,539 | $359,948 |