Home Prices Are Turning Back Up: Where Kansas City Stands

After more than a year of headlines warning that home prices were about to crash, the latest national data points the other way: price growth may be starting to pick back up. What that means for you depends on two things, whether you are buying or selling, and where you are actually doing it.

The National Numbers May Be Turning

Home price growth had been cooling for a couple of years, easing from around 7% in mid-2024, according to Redfin. But the most recent readings suggest that slowdown has found a floor and started to inch back up (see graph below):

A single turn in the data is not a trend, but other signals point the same way. Fewer markets are seeing prices fall at all. Figures from ResiClub and Zillow show that about 36% of the 300 largest housing markets had declining prices in the middle of last year. That share has been shrinking, and it now sits closer to 23% (see graph below):

Put together, these suggest national prices may firm up modestly through the second half of 2026 rather than roll over.

But Prices Are Local

Here is the caveat that matters most. A national home price is just an average of hundreds of very different local markets. Some are climbing, some are still cooling, and the national number hides all of it. Part of why the average is ticking up is simply that more metros have swung positive. Not long ago the big metros were split roughly evenly between rising and falling. Last month, more than half saw prices increase, according to Redfin (see graph below):

As Selma Hepp, Chief Economist at Cotality, notes, local markets "continue to tell very different stories," and annual price growth "has changed little since the start of the year" even as individual metros diverge. Which is exactly why the number that should drive your decision is not the national one.

Where Kansas City Actually Sits

For all the national crash talk, the Kansas City metro never joined the markets with falling prices. As of August 2026, the average sale price across the metro was about $403,000, up roughly 4% from a year earlier. Homes are still selling in about 39 days, sellers are collecting close to 98% of their asking price, and supply remains tight at around 2.6 months. In other words, while the national story is that growth slowed and might be turning back up, the Kansas City version reads more like growth here never really stalled. That difference matters. The local question is not whether prices will recover, but how much room is left to negotiate in a market that has stayed firmly on the rising side of the ledger.

What It Means If You Are Buying

Slower national growth handed buyers something they had not had in years: time, negotiating room, and a budget that held still long enough to plan around. In a metro like Kansas City, where prices have kept rising, that window is the thing to watch. If local growth holds or accelerates, waiting to buy is more likely to mean paying more later, not less. The buyers who do best in this kind of market get their financing in order now and move decisively when the right home appears, rather than waiting for a national dip that may never reach their neighborhood.

What It Means If You Own or Plan To Sell

If you already own, you have been building equity the entire time growth was moderating, and a reacceleration would only add to it. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors, projects the typical homeowner will gain roughly $16,000 in housing wealth this year. For a Kansas City owner weighing a sale, firming prices and a tight, quick market are an encouraging combination, though it is still balanced enough that pricing right and presenting well matter as much as ever.

A Word of Caution on the Turn

One early uptick does not guarantee a sustained climb. The forces that cooled prices, chiefly higher mortgage rates and stretched affordability, have not gone away, and they can cap how fast growth reaccelerates. That is actually reassuring for a buyer, because it argues against panic. The realistic read is not that prices are about to take off, but that the collapse many people feared has not shown up, especially in a steady market like Kansas City. Planning around a modest, durable rise is far safer than betting on either a boom or a bust.

The Bottom Line

National home price growth slowed sharply and is now showing early signs of turning back up, but that headline is an average that may look nothing like your street. In Kansas City, prices kept climbing while much of the country debated a crash that never arrived here. At Munkel Real Estate Solutions, the job is to translate the national picture into the one number that actually affects your move, which is what homes like yours are doing in your part of the metro, so you decide based on your market instead of a headline.

Sources: Redfin, ResiClub, Zillow, Cotality, National Association of Realtors, and Heartland MLS/KCRAR.