Home sales, prices strong across the Kansas City area in 2015
The Kansas City housing market continued its recovery last year, final figures for 2015 indicate, and prices and the number of sales were up across the metro area.
The Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors gathers sales figures for 19 counties, and about 90 percent of the sales occur in seven: Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte in Kansas; and Clay, Jackson, Leavenworth and Platte in Missouri.
Prices rose in each, with percentage increases in median sales prices ranging from 1.9 percent in Clay County (from $157,000 to $160,000) to 12.5 percent in Wyandotte (from $80,000 to $90,000). Clay County was the outlier, however, as every other county saw at least a 6 percent rise.
As usual, Johnson County at $235,000 had the highest median sales price, meaning half the homes sold there went for less than that, and half cost more. Wyandotte’s median price was by far the lowest, with Jackson next at $134,000. The average across the 19-county area was $169,900, up 6.7 percent.
The biggest bump in the number of sales came in Jackson County, which went from 9,160 in 2014 to 10,189 last year. In percentage terms, the biggest jump was in Leavenworth County, where the number of sales was up nearly 20 percent.
Along with the increases in sales and their prices, the area’s inventory — the number of homes on the market — dropped sharply across the board from December 2014 to December 2015. Percentage declines in the main metro counties ranged from 26 percent in Johnson County to 31.5 percent in Jackson County. In the whole 19-county region, the drop was 27.2 percent.
This story was originally published January 22, 2016 at 3:18 AM with the headline "Home sales, prices strong across the Kansas City area in 2015."