Kansas City Existing Homes Sales Recover

The Kansas City real estate market is divided by the Kansas-Missouri state line, but it functions as a single housing market. So the figures here, from the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors, include sales from both sides of the border.

The market seems to be recovering from a bottom it hit in January. The Kansas City metro area, with a population of about 1.97 million, never experienced the torrid sales pace that much of the East and West Coasts did during the recent housing boom. Sales did hit a cyclical peak last June but then fell. Sales have risen for the past four months. And sales of existing homes were up 1% in April compared with April last year, though the average price fell about 1%.

For newly built homes, sales were down 18% in April compared with April 2006, but the average price rose nearly 7% to $282,990.

"We had a little optimistic building" by developers, says Diane Ruggiero, CEO of the local association of Realtors. There was a 10.4-month supply of new homes on the market in April, down from the peak of 15.9 months at the start of the year. For existing homes, there was a 6.8-month supply, up from March but down from an 8.6-month inventory in January.

"There are two differences in our market than (five years ago)," Ruggiero says. "One is bigger inventory, two is more agents. In 2001, we had 6,500 agents in this region. Now, we have a little over 10,000. There's a huge growth in the number of people coming into the business."

Liberty High Schools Military Hall of Fame

Liberty High School is partnering with Proud Military Moms to implement a Military Hall of Fame for Active Duty Alumni. We want to honor current Liberty High School students that are classified as Active Duty or Liberty High School graduates that are currently in Active Duty, the Reserves, or in the National Guard. To participate in this program, or for more information, please contact Mrs. Parnau at http://www.proudmilmoms.com/ or 913-338-9473.