Aberdeen, SD apartments are filled mainly by health care and manufacturing workers, a smaller pool of Northern State University students, seniors downsizing out of houses, and lower-income households who cannot find enough income-restricted units. Aberdeen rental demand has held up even though the city’s population has been roughly flat since 2020, because household sizes are shrinking and very little new rental housing was built between 2016 and 2021.
That combination shows up clearly in the city’s 2024 housing study, which estimated market-rate vacancy at just 2.5% to 3%. The sections below walk through who rents in Aberdeen, which employers stand behind that demand, how the 2023 closure of Presentation College changed the student picture, and what HUD’s latest Fair Market Rents say about pricing in Brown County.
Aberdeen rental demand at a glance
Aberdeen is the county seat and economic center of Brown County in northeastern South Dakota. According to U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts for Aberdeen and Brown County, the city held an estimated 27,961 residents on July 1, 2025, out of 37,561 in the county. In other words, about three of every four county residents live inside city limits, so the apartment market is concentrated in one place.
A few headline numbers frame the market:
- Owner-occupied housing rate of 61.7% in the 2020-2024 American Community Survey (ACS), which means roughly 38% of occupied homes in Aberdeen are rented. The Brown County owner rate is higher, at 67.6%.
- The 2020 Census counted 5,218 renter households in Aberdeen, or 42.7% of all households, according to the 2024 housing study. The study suggests the renter share may have topped 43% by 2024.
- Median gross rent of $762 a month (2020-2024 ACS), against a median household income of $64,405.
- Average household size of 2.18 people, smaller than the 2.26 average for the county.
- Market-rate vacancy estimated at 2.5% to 3% in 2024, down from above 6% in 2018.
The gap between the ACS renter share (about 38%) and the decennial count (42.7%) matters. The housing study’s authors note the ACS likely undercounts renters in Aberdeen, possibly by about 200 households. Either way, Aberdeen is more renter-heavy than the county around it, which is what you would expect from a regional job center with a university and two hospitals.
Population: flat headcount, smaller households
Aberdeen grew in the 2010s. The Census counted 26,091 residents in 2010 and 28,495 in 2020, a gain of about 9%. Since then the trend has flattened. The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates put the city at 27,961 in mid-2025, a decline of 1.8% from the April 2020 estimates base. Brown County shows a nearly identical decline of 1.9%.
A shrinking or flat population does not automatically mean shrinking apartment demand. Two things work in the other direction in Aberdeen. First, households are small. At 2.18 people per household, the same number of residents needs more housing units than it did when families were larger. Second, the housing study found a growing senior population moving from owned homes into rentals, a shift that adds renter households without adding people.
The 2024 study, prepared by Community Partners Research, Inc. for the City of Aberdeen, projected that the city could reach about 29,100 residents and 13,170 households by 2028. Those projections are more optimistic than the Census estimates released since then, and anyone reading the study should keep both numbers in view.
Health care is the largest employment base
Health care is the single biggest source of Aberdeen renters with steady paychecks. In an April 2025 community profile submitted by the Aberdeen Development Corporation, health care and social assistance led all sectors with 3,103 workers, ahead of retail trade (2,819) and manufacturing (2,734). Accommodation and food services followed at 1,756.
Two hospital systems anchor that sector:
- Avera St. Luke’s Hospital, founded by the Presentation Sisters and dedicated in 1901. Avera’s own history of the campus lists repeated expansions, including a four-story, 70,000-square-foot addition in 2006 for intensive care, women’s services and physician clinics.
- Sanford Aberdeen Medical Center, a $55 million, 48-bed hospital that opened in the summer of 2012, giving the city a second full hospital system and a second large health care payroll.
Hospital work fits apartment living well. Nurses, technicians, therapists and traveling clinicians often arrive without knowing the city, work shifts that make a short commute valuable, and may stay a year or two before deciding whether to buy. The 2020-2024 ACS put Aberdeen’s mean commute at 11.9 minutes, and the housing study found that more than 90% of city residents commuted less than 20 minutes in 2022. In a city that compact, location inside town matters less than unit quality and parking.
Census figures underline how large the sector is relative to the city’s size. The 2022 Economic Census recorded about $402 million in health care and social assistance receipts for Aberdeen alone.
Manufacturing, meat and soybeans
Manufacturing is Aberdeen’s third-largest employment sector, and its plants supply a different kind of renter: hourly production workers, maintenance technicians and supervisors, many on shift schedules. The ADC’s 2025 profile names 3M, Demkota Ranch Beef, Twin City Fan & Blower and Midstates Inc. among the area’s major private employers.
3M
3M has operated in Aberdeen for decades and drew national attention during the pandemic. South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported in November 2020 that 3M was adding about 120,000 square feet to the plant to raise N95 respirator output, bringing 100 new jobs on top of 200 already added that year.
Demkota Ranch Beef
The former Northern Beef Packers plant, a 420,000-square-foot facility, sat idle before New Angus LLC restarted it in November 2015 and began marketing its product as Demkota Ranch Beef. Agweek described a design capacity of 1,500 head a day at the time of the restart. Large meatpacking plants typically recruit workers from well beyond the local labor pool, which adds to demand for affordable one- and two-bedroom units.
AGP soybean processing
Ag Processing Inc. (AGP), a farmer-owned cooperative based in Omaha, held a grand opening for its Aberdeen soybean processing plant on July 17, 2019. As Feedstuffs reported at the opening, the plant was built to crush more than 50 million bushels of soybeans a year and employ about 60 people. The headcount is modest, but the plant ties local demand to the regional farm economy.
Agriculture also shows up through Agtegra Cooperative, which is headquartered in Aberdeen. Agtegra was formed in 2018 by merging North Central Farmers Elevator and South Dakota Wheat Growers, and Farm Credit describes it as having more than 60 locations and about 7,000 members across five states. Headquarters jobs in agronomy, grain marketing and finance tend to produce renters at higher price points than plant jobs do.
Students after Presentation College closed
Aberdeen used to have two colleges. Presentation College, founded by the Presentation Sisters in 1951 with a focus on nursing, announced in January 2023 that it would close its Aberdeen campus after the summer session, as South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported. College officials cited the rural location, reliance on tuition and gifts, and the impact of COVID-19.
That leaves Northern State University (NSU) as the city’s campus. NSU reported fall 2025 headcount of 3,739, up slightly from 3,708 in fall 2024, with undergraduate transfer enrollment up 33%. The university’s fall 2025 snapshot breaks that headcount into 3,177 undergraduates and 562 graduate students. Only 1,088 of the undergraduates and 82 of the graduate students were full-time.
That distinction is important for anyone sizing student demand. The housing study counted 1,148 Aberdeen-based NSU students in the 2023-24 year and described enrollment on campus as declining. NSU also has six residential buildings, including three newer residence halls, so a meaningful share of full-time students live on campus. The study’s authors expected students to be absorbed by general rental production rather than requiring a dedicated wave of student housing, though they noted student-oriented units could be built near campus.
Presentation College dorms become apartments
The former Presentation campus is now feeding the rental supply rather than demand. In October 2025, Aberdeen Insider reported that the Aberdeen Housing Authority, through its nonprofit Housing Plus, Inc., had converted the former North Suites into 36 three- and four-bedroom apartments known as Sister Janice Klein Village. The units carry no income limits, and more than 50 applications came in within two weeks. St. Joseph Catholic Housing is converting the former East Suites into 45 more apartments, most of them for households at or below 60% of area median income. Together that is 81 units, a figure The Dakota Scout also reported in December 2024.
The fast lease-up of large family units is a useful data point. Three- and four-bedroom apartments are scarce in Aberdeen’s existing stock, as the bedroom mix below shows.
What the 2024 Aberdeen housing study found
The most detailed local source on apartments is the City of Aberdeen Housing Study Update from July 2024. Researchers surveyed about 2,400 traditional rental units in the spring and summer of 2024, including 1,794 market-rate units at 55 properties, 231 tax credit units and 375 subsidized units.
Vacancy and supply
Market-rate vacancy was estimated at 2.5% to 3%, compared with more than 6% in the 2018 study. Income-restricted units had very low vacancy and common waiting lists. On the supply side, the study’s permit table shows how uneven construction has been. Multifamily permits totaled 87 units in 2014, 91 in 2015, zero in 2016, 72 in 2017, 16 in 2018, zero in 2019, 10 in 2020, 22 in 2021, 194 in 2022 and 20 in 2023. Since 2016, only 2022 matched the city’s longer-term average of about 84 multifamily units a year.
Most of the 2022 spike came from two projects: Forte’ Living, 100 apartments for residents age 50 and older that opened in early 2024, and Dakota Estates III, a 72-unit conventional complex. The study also noted that no new moderate-rent tax credit project had been built in Aberdeen since the 2018 study, leaving that inventory at 231 units.
Unit mix and rent ranges
Of 1,608 market-rate units that reported bedroom counts, 52.8% were two-bedroom and 34.1% were one-bedroom. Only 7.5% had three bedrooms and 1% had four. Prevailing market-rate gross rents in 2024 were:
- Studio: $500 to $975
- One-bedroom: $675 to $1,150
- Two-bedroom: $800 to $1,500
- Three-bedroom: $1,000 to $1,500
How much more rental housing the study called for
The study recommended 400 to 450 rental units over five years, built on an assumption of about 124 new households a year with a 60% renter share. It broke that down into at least 200 to 250 conventional market-rate units, 70 to 80 tax credit units and a goal of 30 to 40 subsidized units. Separately, it identified a need for 60 or more units of light-services senior housing, 40 or more assisted living units and memory care capacity for 35 to 50 residents.
Rents, fair market rents and affordability in Brown County
HUD’s FY2026 Fair Market Rents for Brown County, which set payment standards for Housing Choice Vouchers, are:
- Efficiency: $652
- One-bedroom: $708
- Two-bedroom: $929
- Three-bedroom: $1,168
- Four-bedroom: $1,477
One detail in HUD’s calculation is worth knowing. Brown County’s own data produced a preliminary two-bedroom figure of $908, which was below South Dakota’s FY2026 state minimum of $929, so HUD raised it to the state floor. The two-bedroom FMR rose from $872 in FY2025, while the three-bedroom figure fell from $1,218. For owners who rent to voucher holders, those numbers set the ceiling on what the program will support for a typical unit.
Compared with the prevailing market-rate ranges in the housing study, the FMRs sit near the bottom of the newer-product range and closer to the middle of older stock. That fits the broader picture. Aberdeen’s median gross rent of $762 is modest, while its median home value of $217,300 and median monthly owner cost of $1,524 with a mortgage (both 2020-2024 ACS) make buying a meaningful step up for many renter households. The housing study found that about 10.4% of rental units rented for $1,250 or more, so the high end of the market is thin.
What could soften demand
Aberdeen’s renter base is broad, but it has taken real hits in the past decade, and investors studying the market should weigh them alongside the strengths.
- Plant closures. Molded Fiber Glass closed its Aberdeen wind turbine blade plant in August 2021, eliminating 300 jobs, after citing market conditions, foreign competition and tax policy changes.
- Back-office consolidation. Wells Fargo moved about 100 auto finance and student loan collection jobs out of Aberdeen and closed the office by the end of 2018.
- Shrinking covered employment. The housing study found that Brown County had roughly 950 fewer covered workers in 2023 than at its 2016 peak, and the area’s labor force had been declining since 2016, even with unemployment near 2% in 2023.
- Wages. The average weekly wage in Brown County was $995 in 2022, below the statewide average of $1,039, which caps how far rents can climb.
- Higher education. The loss of Presentation College removed a campus, and NSU’s first-year enrollment fell short of its goal in fall 2025.
On the other side of the ledger, the ADC’s 2025 profile reports that more than 6,000 people commute into Aberdeen every day, while almost 5,000 residents commute out. A net inflow of workers is a pool that new or upgraded apartments can draw from if the product fits.
Practical takeaways for Aberdeen apartment owners
For owners and passive investors looking at the city, the research points to a handful of practical conclusions:
- Underwrite to a tight but not runaway market. Vacancy of 2.5% to 3% supports steady occupancy, while local wage levels and HUD’s state-minimum FMR suggest rent growth will be measured.
- Know who your tenants work for. Health care, manufacturing and retail employ the most people, and the two hospital systems are the most stable of those employers.
- Look at unit mix. Two-bedroom units dominate, and three- and four-bedroom apartments are rare, which helps explain the quick response to the converted Presentation College suites.
- Watch the senior segment. The study’s call for senior housing and the 100-unit Forte’ Living project show that downsizing residents are a real source of rental demand.
- Track new supply. The 81 units on the former Presentation campus and any downtown conversions will compete for some of the same households, especially at moderate rents.
If you own or are evaluating property in the city, our Aberdeen market page summarizes how we view the local apartment market, and our South Dakota markets overview compares Aberdeen with other cities in the state. For readers newer to the asset class, our guide to how passive multifamily investing works explains the structure behind group ownership of apartment buildings.
Aberdeen is not a fast-growing city, but its apartments have a diverse set of tenants behind them: two hospitals, a set of large plants tied to the farm economy, a regional university, and an aging population that increasingly prefers to rent. For a city of about 28,000, that is a durable base, and the 2024 housing study suggests the market still needs several hundred more rental units to serve it.
