Homes under $300K continue to disappear in Johnson County as average sale price passes $550K

In 2018, nearly 100,000 homes in Johnson County were considered affordable and attainable.

Last year, the county classified fewer than 25,000 homes as attainable.

Attainable housing refers to homes that cost $300,000 or less, Johnson County Interim Appraiser Kara Endicott told the County Board of Commissioners last Thursday.

They’re harder and harder to come by across the county these days.

“Those homes have either become more expensive than $300,000 or simply just the stock has gone down,” she said.

More than 90% of Johnson County homes went up in value, with average home prices sitting at $508,000 and the average sale price at $557,000. However, most of the new homes sold in Johnson County are custom homes, pushing the average selling price of new homes to $785,000.

Does Johnson County have enough housing?

As home values increase and affordable housing becomes less available, more families are burdened by the cost of housing, Kristy Baughman, the executive director for United Community Services of Johnson County, told the Star on Tuesday.

People who spend 30% or more of their income on housing are considered cost-burdened, she said. In Johnson County, approximately 26% of households are burdened by housing costs, and those who rent are twice as likely to be cost-burdened than those who own their home.

“The problem is it puts you in a precarious situation,” Baughman said. Individuals are less likely to save for emergencies or retirement, go on vacation or afford healthy food because more of their income is going toward housing.

“We see these dramatic increases in the cost of housing and [it’s] not matched with a dramatic increase in salaries,” Baughman said.

Between 2018 and 2023, median rent in Johnson County increased by 35% while median household income increased 18% ($86,746 to $107,702), according to the report.

“I think we have a real shortage of affordable housing. I think Board of Commissioners Chair Mike Kelly said yesterday in the news that we’re in a crisis and I think that’s accurate,” Baughman said. “I don’t think there’s one solution, I think there are many.”

One of the county board of commissioners’ goals is to build more attainable housing, Interim Appraiser Endicott noted during her presentation. While the county isn’t seeing immediate growth, Endicott said that there’s 1,752 residential building permits for single family, duplex, triplex and four-plex developments.

“This was encouraging for me,” she said. “People are starting to gain a little more confidence in the market itself and developers are participating more.”

Where are people moving?

Endicott said she’s seeing trends showing a lot of residents moving to southeastern Johnson County — where a lot of new construction is happening — and the northeast corner to be close to the city.

She also said a lot of folks are moving into the Olathe area because it’s where the most attainable houses are in the county, closer to that $300,000 range.

“The lower prices are probably the reason we are seeing growth in these areas because these are some of the last places folks can go to get starter homes,” she said.

Since the average sale prices continue climbing, the appraiser’s office didn’t see it falling off the cliff quite yet. But interest rates are projected to come down this coming year, Endicott said, and she hopes that will have a positive impact on prices.

In the meantime, Baughman said that she’d like to see the county use public-private partnerships, continue its eviction mediation program and follow and support models like Habitat for Humanity’s Pathway at Heritage Park — an affordable housing project in Olathe that will keep its homes affordable in perpetuity.

The state legislature also plays a role in affordable housing development. It votes on two bills this week that would eliminate the Affordable Housing Tax Credit — a credit that can be used to develop low-income housing projects in Kansas, she said. It helped build 2,000 units in Kansas since it passed in 2022.

“There’s just different approaches and possible solutions. It’s a puzzle, each of those solutions is a piece,” Baughman said.

This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 6:00 AM.