So you’re thinking about moving to Kansas City and you want to know exactly what it costs to live here. We did the research and we’ll be comparing our very affordable costs to other cities around the country. We’ll show you exactly why people are escaping their expensive cities to live the good life right here in Kansas City.
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With nearly 2.2 million people residing in the Kansas City metropolitan area, it’s not the cow town it was best known for. In fact, Kansas City is quickly becoming one of the hottest places to move to. Due to its diverse choices in entertainment and dining, as well as having sports teams and a lively downtown atmosphere. Kansas City is one of the most enjoyable and affordable cities in the entire US.
House Prices
Hey, let’s call out the elephant in the room. Kansas City’s home prices make up the number one reason that Kansas City is so affordable to live. In fact, at only $240,000 average sales price, housing affordability isn’t the issue in Kansas City that it is in the rest of the country. I know I sell real estate, but I also know that home prices don’t make up everything. So you should know that Kansas City does have a 1% earnings tax, and that we do have sales tax here in the state and in the city. This reduces our property taxes quite a bit compared to other cities in the country. Now, our utilities are going to run about $30 more on average than other cities in the country. This is because we do have four seasons and we do get a fairly cold winter. You’re going to have a house with a furnace and air conditioner here.
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Transportations Costs
But like I said before, Kansas City is a car town. You’re going to need a vehicle to get around well here, so gasoline is a big deal. You should know that Missouri historically has some of the cheapest gas prices in the country. Currently, we’re at $3.39 a gallon. I was in San Francisco over the weekend, $6.79. It’s currently October of 2022.
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Internet Costs
Many of our clients that relocate to Kansas City require very fast internet. They either work at home, part-time, full-time, or they have kids with lots of devices. You should know that Kansas City was the very first place that Google opened up Google Fiber, and we have most of the city fiber-ran. Currently, one gig connection is going to run you about $70 a month.
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Compare to Nearby Cities
Let’s take a look at some of our nearest neighbors. Let’s go south down to Austin, where it’s currently $640,000 to buy a house on average. Want to go east? Let’s look at Nashville. $490,000. Chicago actually makes up our closest competitor at $350,000. But you know what? Let’s go west. Denver, right now it’s $585,000 on average to buy a house. You want to go further west? Out in LA it’s $950,000. And San Francisco really takes the cake at 1.47 million. When you consider all those prices, Kansas City’s looking pretty attractive.
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Let’s go ahead and pull up the map of Kansas City. I’m going to show you some of the hot spots where people choose to live and why you might choose one area over another. So first things first. The Kansas City Airport is located in the northwest corner of the city. While most of the business is located in the southwest corner or the downtown area. So that’s confusing to a lot of people moving outside of the area, where you’re used to being in another city and being really close to work’s important.
But don’t worry about that too much. This city is a car city. There’s not a lot of public transport and having a car is important. Lucky for you, the city also is a great trucking hub with a lot of highways. So if you look at the map, you’re going to see I-70, I-49, which is a I-29 as well. You’re going to see 35 come through, and these are the main interstates that all intersect at Kansas City. You’ll see a 435 loop. This is a loop that goes all the way around the city. You can literally just get on it. If you get lost, you can get on 435 and make your way home. It makes a lot of sense when you live here.
Β So when you think about where do you want to live, being close to your work might not be the absolute most important reason that you pick an area. Because you can travel the entire city in as little as 40 minutes. Most people are doing commutes within 10 or 15 minutes. So first things first, let’s go ahead and look up here in the top left corner. Let’s say that working in Overland Park and being close to the airport’s important to you. Well, Parkville is going to make an excellent option for you.
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Parkville
Over here in Parkville, a three to four bedroom, two bath, two car garage house is going to run about 337,000, 170 on the low end, 650,000 on the high end.
Liberty
Head out east, maybe you’re working at Ford, or you want to have some access to the independent eastern part of the city. Well, Liberty’s a great option. Prices there are 309,000 on average, and start about 150 and go to 550, has easy access to downtown. Many people that work downtown choose to live in Liberty for that I-35 access.
Lees Summit
Now, Lee’s Summit is another hot booming area. It’s going to be located down in the southeast part of the city, where the prices there are going to be around 334,000 average. It’s going to have a little bit more of a high-end home choices. Prices there are starting at 110 for a townhouse and they’re going up to 774,000 for, again, a three to four bedroom house. There are larger houses, I’ve kept this down to three and four bed.
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Overland Park
Now, if you look over here, this is the Overland Park, Shawnee, Olathe area, and this is going to be what most people are going to call JoCo or Johnson County. Now, this is the most attractive part of the city, generally speaking, and you’re going to see some of the most expensive home prices here. With that being said, you can see that in Johnson County you can buy a house, this is going to be a townhouse, in about the 170 price point, and it’s going to go up to well over 1,000,000. 4 bedrooms here, you can have a four bedroom for under 905. Average price point is going to be 402,000. So it is the most expensive part of the city, generally speaking.
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South of Plaza and Midtown
Now, another great option if you want to live close to the city is going to be the south of the Plaza area. And this is going to include areas like Brookside. You might want to look at neighborhoods such as Hospital Hill and Hyde Park, but I’d recommend also looking south of the Plaza. The Plaza is our big shopping district. But if you go south of the Plaza, you’re going to find Brookside, you’re going to find Prairie Village, you’re going to find Leewood. And these are also very hot spots to live.
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Now, south of the Plaza is going to be generally older homes. If we’re looking at just south of the Plaza on the Missouri side, you’re going to find homes in all sorts of conditions and qualities. This is because there’s various ages in many different remodels and different qualities. But you can find a house there for as cheap as $15,000, which I promise is a fixer-upper. And they go all the way up to over 2 million. So you’ll see down there it’s block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. If you cross the Kansas line, houses are going to go up in value quite a bit generally.
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Entertainment and Dining
Now, whether you’re going out solo or you got a hot date, you should probably know, that going to a middle scale restaurant’s going to run between 12 and $16 for a meal. And if you got a date, two people and a couple of drinks, you might expect to spend 65-$70. That’s some of the more affordable prices in the country. If you’re going out for a beer, a beer is going to be 4-$6. A cocktail, well, cocktail, same ballpark. But if you want to go out for a premium drink where they’ve got the drink mixologist doing some fancy stuff downtown, it might be in that 12-$15 range. And there are a lot of great choices. And there’s 2.2 million people in the city, there’s always a friendly face to meet.
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Grocieries and Cooking at Home
And if we’re talking about being affordable, obviously cooking at home’s the most affordable way to go. So you should know that, again, this is a highway city. You can get most places in the city in 15 to 20 minutes. That means that in a short drive, you’re going to have choices of three or four local grocery stores, an Aldi, a Costco or a Sam’s Club. We’ve got Trader Joe’s and we’ve got Sprouts and Whole Foods. All those big city choices are here. We also have food delivery and Amazon delivery daily. There’s nothing different here than there would be in any other city, except that our food prices are on par or lower than most cities. And especially beef is going to be cheaper in Kansas City than most other places, being that Kansas City was a cow town and we still have a lot of cows here.
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So as you can see, living in Kansas City is pretty awesome and it’s very affordable. One of my favorite things about being here, especially when I compare it to other places, I travel, is that most of our homes are going to have pretty good size yards. We’re going to have a little bit more space than in most cities, as the city can grow out in a lot of different directions. We don’t have a mountain range. We don’t have an ocean right up against us that we’re compacted against. So most houses are going to have a little bit of space and spread. Again, it requires a car to get around. But even going into a restaurant, it’s not uncommon to go in and say, “I’ll have a booth for two.” That’s something you’re not going to find in a place like Philadelphia. Where you go out in a two top and you’re rubbing elbows with the guys next to you.
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Our bars are going to be larger, you might see. I was in San Francisco over the weekend and their bars are only four or five seats. And here, you might see 40 seats and you might see 20 tables. Makes it great for mingling and it’s a very friendly city
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So if you’re thinking again about moving to our area, go ahead, give us a call, a text, pass that note along. We’re here to help you move to the city, and of course, we’ve got your back.
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We have so many people contacting us who are moving here to Kansas City and we ABSOLUTELY love it! Honestly if you are moving or relocating here to Kansas City or the northwest Missouri area, we can make that transition so much easier on you!!
