Kansas City Housing Market Trends

The Kansas City housing market has really heated up over the past couple years. Let's take a look at some of the current trends in the KC real estate market.

First, according to Trulia.com, the median home price listing is listed for $213,568 with 1,823 homes for sale this week. The median rent is $975/mo. These numbers don't give us very much context without knowing where the market has been. Read on to gain an understanding of where the market is coming from.

When it comes to the median rent that people are charging, just a couple months ago, the median rent was about $890/mo and it has swung up to the $975/mo previously mentioned. The number of rental properties in KC has steadily increased over the past year from just over 600 a year ago to about 1,588 currently. And yet the median rent is rising even with the increase in supply. As home values rise as they have over the past year, it can be common that rather than sell a property, a person may buy their next home while renting out their old property.

So other interesting facts about the KC market is that the median sales price as risen 4.5 percent for existing homes and 8.5 percent for new homes over the past year. The "days on market" decreased by 17.6 percent and 7.1 percent for existing homes and new homes respectively. The supply on the market has decreased by 26.7 percent. All of these indicate a very strong housing market in the KC area prompting many to wonder if this is a repeat of the housing crisis that was experienced just a decade ago.

According to Trulia's ranking of schools in the KC area, Acadamie Lafeyette is the highest ranked for Elementary Schools as well as Middle Schools. When it comes to high schools, Lee's Summit West High is the number one ranked school.

When it comes to Kansas City's demographics, it actually a rather young city. The median age of Kansas City is 36 with 59% of people owning homes. Forty percent of KC residents are single and the median household income is $44,500. Only 31% of KC residents hold a college degree.

When comparing Kansas City to a couple local cities, Kansas City seems like a very good deal. For example, Lawrence has an average home price of $313,000 with only 230 homes for sale(obviously its smaller than Lawrence) and the median rent is $1,200...but maybe the higher rent can be attributed to it being a college town. The median age is 31 with 47% of single and 55% college educated.

In the local town of Empora, KS, they have an average listing price of $130,000 with 96 homes for sale and the median rent of $675. Obviously, Emporia appears to be much more affordable than KC whereas Lawrence was quite a bit more expensive. The median age is 33 with 60% of people owning homes and 29% being college educated. The median household income in Emporia is $40,760.

So hopefully this article will give you some context into what the Kansas City housing market is like and where it may be headed. It's certainly a sellers market at the moment. If you are in the market for a home, and don't know if you can afford to buy a home in this market, be sure to talk to your local mortgage broker and realtor in order to get their advice. Also, be sure to use an online mortgage calculator in order to determine if you can afford to buy a home and if so, how much house you can afford.