Buying a Home on the Missouri Side of Kansas City: Downtown, the Northland, Independence, Lee's Summit and Cass County

Northbound on State Line Road, you are driving in Missouri. The cars coming toward you on the other side of the road are in Kansas. It stays that way for much of the road's length (KCUR, September 18, 2014). If you head the other direction, north across the Missouri River on the Buck O'Neil Bridge, you are in the Northland, which is what locals call everything on the far side of the river. Down in the River Market, the Arabia Steamboat Museum holds the cargo of a steamboat that sank in the Missouri in 1856 and was dug out of a cornfield (Arabia Steamboat Museum). A few blocks from it, the KC Streetcar now runs from the Berkley Riverfront all the way to UMKC.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in Missouri through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. I wrote this page for anyone thinking about buying a home on the Missouri side of the Kansas City area. A client buying a home on the Missouri side of Kansas City is choosing among downtown and the Plaza, the Northland north of the river, eastern Jackson County towns like Independence and Lee's Summit, and the Cass County towns along I-49. The places come first, then what is being built, where the Royals and the Chiefs are going, the roads, the schools and the hospitals. After that come the things worth looking up on any address before you compare it with another: the city limits, the county, the tax bill and the insurance. The facts below come from public sources, cited beside the ones that matter most, and they were gathered in September 2026. The Kansas side of the metro gets its own page.

Each part of the Missouri side of Kansas City

Downtown, the Crossroads and the River Market

The streetcar is the newest thing downtown. Its Main Street Extension opened to riders on October 24, 2025, adding 3.5 miles from the original downtown line south to 51st Street and Brookside Boulevard at UMKC (KSHB 41). The Riverfront Extension opened on May 18, 2026. It is 0.7 miles long, cost $62 million, crosses the Grand Boulevard Bridge, and ends at the CPKC Pavilion, a canopied stop built to carry World Cup crowds onto the riverfront (Axios Kansas City, May 18, 2026). The City Market anchors the River Market and runs every Saturday of the year, with Sundays added from spring through December (City Market).

Union Station, from 1914, holds Science City and a planetarium (Union Station), and the National WWI Museum and Memorial stands across the lawn from it under the Liberty Memorial tower. In the 18th and Vine district, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum share one building (Negro Leagues Baseball Museum).

Country Club Plaza, Brookside and midtown

Locals call it the Plaza. Gillon Property Group bought it in 2024, and on May 21, 2026 the City Council unanimously approved a redevelopment master plan (KCTV5). The plan allows buildings up to 178 feet and adds roughly 1,000 to 1,100 apartments and about 1.7 million square feet of shops and offices across 19 blocks over 15 years. On August 24 and 25, 2026, Port KC authorized up to $1.49 billion in bonds and tax incentives for it, over objections from the school district. Port KC said taxpayers are not on the hook for the bonds (KCUR, August 25, 2026).

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is just south of the Plaza, with the shuttlecock sculptures on its lawn (Nelson-Atkins). Loose Park, at 51st Street and Wornall Road, has a lake, a rose garden, tennis courts and Civil War markers (KC Parks). Farther down Wornall Road, the Brookside Farmers' Market runs Saturday mornings from May through October in the parking lot (Brookside Farmers' Market).

The Northland: Gladstone, Liberty, Parkville, Smithville, Kearney and Platte City

The Northland is the Clay County and Platte County part of Kansas City plus the towns around it: Gladstone, Liberty, Parkville, Riverside, Smithville, Kearney and Platte City (KC Options). Pioneer Crossing is the biggest plan up here, and local news coverage has taken to calling it "the Plaza of the Northland" (KCTV5, April 23, 2026). It is a $2.3 billion mixed-use plan on roughly 400 acres near I-435 and Highway 152 in Clay County. The land is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Land Reserve Inc. is the developer. On May 21, 2026 the City Council approved the first piece of its TIF structure and set the district boundaries (KCTV5, May 22, 2026). TIF is short for tax increment financing. The growth in property tax that a project creates is set aside for a period of years to pay for part of the project.

Metro North Crossing is the 106-acre, $250 million redevelopment of the former Metro North Mall site. Chick-fil-A opened there in December 2025, Swig in January 2026 and IMO's, the St. Louis-style pizza chain, in late February 2026 (KCTV5, February 18, 2026). The City Plan Commission also approved an 87-acre neighborhood of 200 single-family homes near NE Staley Road and Shoal Creek Parkway (Beacon: Kansas City, May 26, 2026). Builders' own sites describe several named master-planned neighborhoods here. Staley Farms is built around a golf course. Benson Place is in Shoal Creek Valley at NE 96th Street between I-435 and N Flintlock Road. Woodneath Farms is on Flintlock Road just north of MO-152, next to Shoal Creek Golf Course.

Liberty is getting the $1.4 billion Metrobloks data center, which the employers section covers. The city also passed new multifamily design standards in May 2026: no vinyl siding, new landscaping requirements, and rules on where garages may go in future apartment and townhome projects (KSHB 41). The Historic Downtown Liberty Farmers' Market runs Saturday mornings from May through October on the courthouse square (Historic Downtown Liberty).

Parkville's English Landing Park runs about 68 acres along the Missouri River, with three miles of walking trails and a disc golf course (City of Parkville). Smithville has grown about 3% a year over the last decade (City of Smithville, FY2026 budget). Smithville Lake spreads across Clay and Clinton counties, and Clay County Parks runs its two public swim beaches and its boat ramps (Clay County). North of Kearney, the Jesse James Farm and Museum is the farm where Jesse and Frank James were born and raised (Visit Excelsior). In Excelsior Springs, the 1937 Art Deco Hall of Waters was built around the mineral springs that made the town a resort, and it now holds city hall while its restoration continues (City of Excelsior Springs). Weston Bend State Park covers about 1,133 acres on the east bank of the Missouri River (Missouri State Parks).

Independence

Independence organizes its redevelopment around five areas: Noland Road, the Historic Independence Square, Fairmount, Englewood and Maywood (City of Independence). Fairmount is getting new sidewalks, a bicycle boulevard, a multi-purpose trail and drainage work along Kentucky Road, with construction planned for spring 2026 (City of Independence). Truman Connected is a street project from US 24 and MO 291 to Blue Ridge Cutoff at I-70 that ties the Square, the Truman Library, the Englewood Arts District and the Truman Sports Complex together.

The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum was the first presidential library built under the 1955 act, and Truman's grave is in its courtyard (National Archives). The National Park Service runs his home on Delaware Street. The Little Blue Trace Trail runs 15 miles through eastern Independence, from Blue Mills Road on the north to Lees Summit Road on the south (Jackson County Parks + Rec). On September 18, 2026 Jackson County cut the ribbon on a $2.87 million connector linking it to the Rock Island Trail (KCTV5, September 15, 2026).

Blue Springs and Grain Valley

Since 2024, Blue Springs has issued nearly 400 building permits for new single-family homes, eight of them downtown (KSHB 41). Fleming Park, the largest park in Jackson County at about 7,809 acres, holds both Lake Jacomo and Blue Springs Lake (Jackson County Parks + Rec). The I-70 widening from Blue Springs to Odessa starts just west of MO Route 7 here, and the roads section below covers it.

Lee's Summit

Discovery Park is a mixed-use project on 268 acres near I-470 and Saint Luke's East Hospital, by Intrinsic Development. News reports put its cost at $900 million to roughly $1 billion (REBusinessOnline; KSHB 41). Plans call for 3.9 million square feet in four phases, including 2,791 apartments in a section named Alura, offices, medical offices, shops and two hotels with 230 rooms between them.

The Lee's Summit R-7 School District serves more than the city. It takes in Greenwood, Lake Lotawana, Lake Winnebago, unincorporated eastern Jackson County and small parts of Blue Springs and Kansas City (Wikipedia: Lee's Summit R-VII School District). A Lee's Summit mailing address does not tell you which school district a home is in, so please check the district map for the specific address. Jackson County's Rock Island Trail runs about 13.5 miles from Lee's Summit to the Truman Sports Complex (Jackson County Parks + Rec).

South Kansas City, Grandview and Martin City

The Kansas City National Security Campus on Botts Road, a Department of Energy site run by Honeywell FM&T, employs more than 7,000 people. Its KC NExT expansion east of Botts Road will eventually add about 2.5 million square feet of office and manufacturing space (Kansas City National Security Campus). The Grandview C-4 School District has bond-funded construction under way at several schools, which the schools section covers. The Blue River Greenway Trail follows the river through the 2,267-acre Blue River Parkway from Swope Park south to the Jackson County line (KC Parks).

Cass County: Raymore, Belton, Harrisonville, Peculiar and Pleasant Hill

Cass County had 113,873 people in the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate. On April 7, 2026, its voters approved a permanent property tax freeze for eligible homes by about 80% of roughly 11,000 votes (KSHB 41). The tax section below explains what the freeze is and where it stands. Belton's 2050 Comprehensive Plan projects about 5,000 more residents, and a 600-unit apartment development is planned along East 163rd Street and Turner Road, with dining, retail and an entertainment district (KSHB 41).

In Harrisonville, Kansas City Hickory Provisions, the company from the family ownership group behind Jack Stack Barbecue, is converting a former Walmart into a 72,000-square-foot USDA-inspected smoking, processing and packaging plant (Startland News, July 2026). The $18 million project was approved in 2026, hiring is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the opening is set for early 2027. Reports of the job count run from more than 20 to as many as 70.

Lafayette, Ray, Clinton, Caldwell and Bates counties

The metro's official footprint takes in five more Missouri counties. In Lafayette County, the Battle of Lexington State Historic Site preserves the 1861 Civil War battlefield and the Oliver Anderson House that stood in the middle of it (Missouri State Parks). Odessa and Bates City, also in Lafayette County, are the east end of the I-70 widening. Ray County's seat is Richmond, home to the Ray County Museum (Ray County Museum). In Clinton County, Wallace State Park covers about 573 acres around Lake Allaman, seven miles south of Cameron (Missouri State Parks), and the north end of Smithville Lake reaches into the county. Caldwell County to the northeast and Bates County to the south complete the list, and the loan-limit box below this article covers all nine counties.

The big projects being built on the Missouri side

The big residential plans are in the sections above: Pioneer Crossing and the Staley Road neighborhood in the Northland, Discovery Park in Lee's Summit, the Plaza plan, and the new homes in Blue Springs and Belton.

On the riverfront, CPKC Stadium is home to the Kansas City Current. On September 10, 2026 the City Council approved a development agreement for a $1.4 billion riverfront district around it. The plan expands the stadium to more than 18,000 seats, adds about 1,500 parking spaces and a new pedestrian bridge from the River Market, extends the trails eastward, and upgrades the stormwater drainage. The city's share is capped at $185 million, down from an initial $235 million request (KCTV5, September 10, 2026).

The city is also putting money into housing directly. On August 4, 2026, Kansas City voters passed Question 1, $100 million in general obligation bonds for the city's Housing Trust Fund, with 75.6% voting yes (Beacon: Kansas City, August 4, 2026). General obligation bonds are the kind a city repays out of its general tax revenue, which is why voters have to approve them.

The Royals' new ballpark and the Chiefs' move to Kansas

Both teams are leaving the Truman Sports Complex, and in opposite directions. In April 2026 the Royals announced an agreement with Hallmark Cards to build a new ballpark at Crown Center, the centerpiece of a roughly $3 billion mixed-use project, targeted to open for the 2030 season (KCUR, April 22, 2026). On August 21, 2026 the City Council approved a $600 million public commitment toward it. Roughly two-thirds of the funding is private and one-third public, and this plan does not need a public vote, unlike the 2024 sales tax proposal that failed (KY3, August 21, 2026).

The Chiefs are heading across the state line. Clark Hunt announced an agreement with the State of Kansas to host Chiefs football beginning with the 2031 NFL season, in a domed stadium of at least 65,000 seats in Wyandotte County, Kansas. The agreement also puts a training facility, headquarters and mixed-use district in Olathe (NFL.com). On September 17, 2026 team president Mark Donovan said the Arrowhead Stadium name will not move with the team. Jackson County faces a question about what to do with the stadium once the team leaves (Sportico).

Before any of that, Arrowhead hosted six World Cup matches in the summer of 2026, including a quarterfinal on July 11. The first was Argentina against Algeria on June 16 (KCUR, June 1, 2026). Matches averaged 68,770 fans (Kansas Reflector, June 10, 2026). The riverfront streetcar extension and the CPKC Pavilion were timed to it.

Road projects that change a Kansas City commute

I-70 through Kansas City. MoDOT's Improve I-70 Kansas City project runs from The Paseo to US 40 at 31st Street. Construction began in spring 2025 and is scheduled to finish in spring 2028, replacing every bridge along the corridor and adding a fourth eastbound lane (MoDOT). In 2027, I-70 will be closed between Prospect Avenue and Van Brunt Boulevard from January through December for bridge and roadway work. MoDOT will send through traffic around it on I-435 and I-470 to the south, and says nearly all cross streets stay open (MoDOT; KCTV5, July 14, 2026). If you are looking east of downtown and drive I-70 to work, that is the year to think through.

I-70 from Blue Springs to Odessa. This $350 million project began in September 2025 and is scheduled to finish at the end of 2028. It adds a third lane each way from just west of MO Route 7 in Blue Springs to about MO Route H, and rebuilds the existing lanes in full-depth concrete. It also replaces 14 bridges and improves the interchanges at Route D in Bates City and MO 131 in Odessa. The Odessa commuter lot is closed from April 14, 2026 until late 2027 (MoDOT; KCTV5, September 1, 2025).

US 71 at Bannister Road. MoDOT scheduled the bridge replacements over Bannister Road in south Kansas City for 2026, World Cup window included, to get them done before the 2027 I-70 closure (MoDOT).

I-49 south to Cass County. MoDOT plans an additional lane in each direction from 155th Street in Jackson County to the MO 58 interchange in Cass County. The work goes out for bids in November 2027, and construction begins in spring 2028. A separate Grandview-to-Belton widening is targeted by 2028 (MoDOT).

The Buck O'Neil Bridge is done. The $220 million US 169 bridge over the Missouri River opened to traffic in October 2024, with direct I-35 connections and a bike and pedestrian lane (MoDOT).

Kansas City International. The single Harry S. Truman Terminal opened in early 2023 with 39 gates. In 2026 United added daily Los Angeles and Southwest added daily Boston, plus weekend flights to Savannah/Hilton Head and Norfolk (flyKC).

Water and sewer. On August 4, 2026, Kansas City voters approved $750 million in water revenue bonds and $750 million in sewer revenue bonds (KCUR, July 20, 2026). Revenue bonds are repaid from the rates customers pay, so this is a line to expect in future utility bills rather than on the property tax bill.

Kansas City area schools and districts

School districts on the Missouri side rarely follow city limits. A Kansas City address alone could be in Kansas City Public Schools, North Kansas City, Park Hill, Liberty, Hickman Mills, Center, Grandview or Raytown. Please check the district's current attendance map for any address you are considering, because the lines are moving in several places.

Kansas City Public Schools passed a $474 million bond on April 8, 2025, its first since 1967, with roughly 85% voting yes (KCUR, April 8, 2025). The King Empowerment Center, the district's first new construction in 30 years, broke ground in April 2025 and opens in January 2027. It combines an early learning center, the new King Elementary and a family resource center on one campus (KCUR, December 16, 2025).

Lee's Summit R-7 passed a $225 million bond on the same day, April 8, 2025. It does not raise the part of the tax bill that pays off the district's school bonds. It funds new buildings for Hazel Grove and Greenwood elementaries, renovations at Pleasant Lea Middle School and Miller Park Center, and athletic field upgrades at Lee's Summit North and Lee's Summit West (KCTV5, April 9, 2025).

Park Hill redrew its attendance lines for 2025-26, affecting nearly 1,600 students, when Angeline Washington Elementary opened at 6600 NW Brush Creek Parkway. Some students were allowed to stay at their prior school under grandfathering rules, and the district publishes them (Park Hill School District).

Raymore-Peculiar passed Proposition RP, a $45 million no-tax-rate-increase bond, with 69.65% voting yes (Ray-Pec). The same district estimates that the Cass County property tax freeze will affect about $6.5 million, roughly 6% of its budget, in the next budget cycle (KSHB 41). Grandview C-4 has 2026 bond work under way at Butcher-Greene and Meadowmere elementaries, Martin City K-8, Grandview Middle and Grandview High (Grandview C-4).

Hospitals on the Missouri side

Children's Mercy Kansas City launched a $1.7 billion overhaul of its downtown Adele Hall campus in April 2026. A new acute-care tower, about $1 billion by itself, will expand capacity by 25% to 30%. The clinical building and utility plant are due in 2029 and the inpatient tower in 2032 (KCUR, April 29, 2026). If you are looking at a home near that campus, you can expect construction there for several years.

Saint Luke's Health System joined BJC HealthCare on January 1, 2024, creating a single nonprofit system of 24 hospitals and 44,000 employees across Kansas City and St. Louis (BJC). If you are looking in Lee's Summit, Saint Luke's East is the hospital next to Discovery Park. University Health runs the area's largest behavioral health program, serving more than 17,000 patients across the metro from its Crossroads campus (University Health).

The large employers

If your move comes with a job at one of these, where it is tells you which part of the metro you will be driving to each day. Google is building a 500-acre, five-building data center campus called Project Mica at the northeast corner of I-435 and Highway 169, at the Hunt Midwest Business Center in the Northland. Port KC's board authorized $10 billion in taxable revenue bonds for it in August 2025, repaid by the developer rather than taxpayers. Google confirmed in February 2026 that it was the company behind the project (Axios Kansas City, February 12, 2026).

In Liberty, Metrobloks of Los Angeles is building a $1.4 billion AI data center of 568,800 square feet across three buildings, announced in March 2026. The City Council approved a 25-year, $202.7 million tax abatement, which is a reduction in the property tax the project would otherwise owe. Metrobloks signed a $27.75 million community benefits agreement funding the Liberty Institute for Science and Ethics over 25 years. The project is expected to create at least 30 permanent jobs at an average wage of $95,649, plus hundreds of construction jobs (Missouri Department of Economic Development; KCUR, March 24, 2026).

Ford's Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, in Clay County, builds the F-150, the Transit and the E-Transit and had 9,021 employees as of April 2024 (Wikipedia: Kansas City Assembly Plant). Claycomo is in Clay County, north of the river, so if you work there, the Northland towns are on your side of the river. The Kansas City National Security Campus in south Kansas City and the Hickory Provisions plant in Harrisonville are covered in their own sections above.

Do you pay the Kansas City earnings tax?

Kansas City, Missouri collects a 1% earnings tax on income earned by residents of the city and by nonresidents who work inside the city limits. A resident owes it even when the job is outside the city. It raises nearly $374 million a year, about half the city's general fund, and pays for police, fire and trash. Voters renewed it on April 7, 2026 with just over 75% yes, and Missouri law requires that renewal vote every five years (KCTV5, April 8, 2026; City of Kansas City). Locals call it the E-tax.

So when you compare a home inside the Kansas City limits with one in Liberty, Gladstone, Lee's Summit, Blue Springs or Raymore, it is worth putting that 1% into the comparison along with the price. The city limits run through all of the Northland and reach east and south through Jackson County, so the city's own boundary map is the place to confirm which side of the line an address is on.

The county the home is in, and the property tax bill

Kansas City's land reaches across Jackson, Clay and Platte counties, so two homes with the same "Kansas City, MO" mailing address can get their tax bills from different county collectors and be in different school districts. The county's property records tell you which one, and I'd check them before comparing the tax figures on two listings.

Missouri assesses a home at 19% of its market value. That 19% figure is the assessed value, and the county, the city, the school district and the fire, library and other districts each apply their own tax rate to it (Missouri property tax guide). A purchase can also change the value the assessor uses. My article What happens to your property taxes after you buy covers how a sale reaches the assessment and why the seller's bill may not be yours.

The Missouri State Tax Commission found errors in about 75% of Jackson County's roughly 300,000 property assessments and ordered the county to roll back its 2023 and 2024 assessments to no more than a 15% increase. A judge upheld that order in April 2025 (Beacon: Kansas City, April 10, 2025). The tax credits that came out of that rollback are being paid in three equal installments, on the 2026, 2027 and 2028 tax bills (KCUR, December 1, 2025). If you are buying in Jackson County, the seller's current bill may include one of those credits, so the collector's office is the best place to ask what the next bill will look like.

Cass County froze its property taxes, and Jackson County was not given the vote. Missouri's Senate Bill 3, passed in June 2025, required 97 of the state's 114 counties to put a property tax credit on the ballot by April 2026. Twenty-two counties, Cass among them, got a 0% version that freezes an eligible owner-occupied home's tax at the starting year's amount, and 75 counties got a cap of 5% or inflation (KY3, March 17, 2026). Seventeen counties were left out of the bill, Jackson County among them (Jefferson City News-Tribune, March 22, 2026). Cass County approved its permanent freeze on April 7, 2026. A lawsuit is challenging the freeze in court, arguing that the law treats counties differently without a clear reason (Governing). So please treat the freeze as something to confirm with the county rather than count on.

A separate program, from Senate Bill 190 in 2023, lets each county offer a senior property tax freeze. Jackson County's applies at age 62 and older, and first-time applications are due June 30 (Jackson County). Clay County has its own program with its own terms (Clay County).

Missouri taxes personal property, including vehicles, at 33⅓% of value as of January 1 each year. If you are moving from a state that does not tax cars, this one is new. You file a declaration with the county assessor by March 1 and the bill is due December 31 (Clay County; Platte County). And Missouri has no real estate transfer tax. Voters approved Constitutional Amendment 3 on November 2, 2010, barring the state, counties and cities from imposing any new tax on the sale or transfer of real estate (Ballotpedia). The Missouri page covers what that does to the government side of a closing and how title companies handle the rest.

If the home is in a neighborhood with a homeowners' association, the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions is the document that binds you, and the association's own resale documents list the dues. Please ask for both early, because the dues go into the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on.

Homeowners insurance and flood in Kansas City

The storms insurers price for in Kansas City are wind and hail. On a homeowners quote, please ask the agent two questions: whether the policy has a separate wind and hail deductible, and how that deductible is figured. Some policies state it as a percentage of the dwelling coverage instead of a flat dollar amount. On a percentage deductible, what you would pay after a hail claim can be well above the deductible on the rest of the policy. Please ask for it in dollars, so the figure is in front of you before you make an offer.

Flooding in Kansas City comes from the Missouri River, the Blue River and Brush Creek. In 2026 the U.S. Geological Survey, working with the City of Kansas City, published flood-inundation maps covering 35.5 miles of the Blue River plus 4.4 miles of Brush Creek and 2.9 miles of Indian Creek. They show flood extent and depth, water depth above the first floor of selected buildings, and how fast the water moves (USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5033). The city also keeps a floodplain map changes page. For a property in FEMA's high-risk flood area, called the Special Flood Hazard Area, the lender will require flood insurance, and the premium becomes part of your monthly payment. I explain how to price it before you make an offer in buying a home in a flood zone.

Carrying these facts into your mortgage

Heartland MLS is the regional listing service, and the Kansas City Regional Association of REALTORS reports its figures for both states together. For July 2026 the median sales price across the metro was $349,900, up 3.9% from a year earlier. There were 8,258 homes on the market, and the average home took 36 days to sell (KCRAR / Heartland MLS monthly report, current as of August 7, 2026). That is a two-state figure, so the Missouri-side median in any one county will differ from it.

Every one of the nine Missouri counties on this page has the lowest FHA loan limit set anywhere in the country for 2026, which HUD calls the floor: $541,287 for a one-unit home. The conforming limit, the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy, is $832,750 in all nine (FHFA). Set against a $349,900 median, a typical home here fits well under both limits, so most clients in this metro can use FHA or a conventional loan without the limit getting in the way. The box below this article lists them by county, and the page on conforming versus jumbo loans explains what changes when a loan crosses that limit. In 2024, by the loan data lenders report under the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, lenders made 18,038 home-purchase loans on the Missouri side of the metro, and 2,970 of them were FHA and 1,389 were VA. If you are buying with a VA loan, how VA loans work in Missouri covers what the state does and does not offer a veteran on property tax.

The Missouri Housing Development Commission runs two homebuyer programs through its approved lenders: First Place, for first-time home purchases and qualified veterans, and Next Step, for first-time and repeat purchases above the First Place income limits (MHDC). Missouri also lets you open a first-time home buyer savings account, and I explain the timing in how a Missouri first-time home buyer savings account works.

Property taxes, the homeowners and flood insurance, and any association dues are all inside the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on, and the earnings tax changes the take-home income you are budgeting from. Pre-approval in Missouri covers what the letter is based on and which closing costs vary here. Once you're ready, you can compare rates for your scenario for a Kansas City area purchase: rates for your scenario and Missouri closing costs, with no credit pull and no account. Choose the option that works best for you, and the application opens from there.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax advice. The value the assessor uses for a specific property, and whether a freeze or credit applies to it, are set by that county, so please confirm them with the county office.

Common questions

Do I pay the Kansas City earnings tax if I live in the city but work in Kansas?

Yes. Kansas City, Missouri's 1% earnings tax applies to every resident of the city, wherever the job is, and to nonresidents who work inside the city limits. Voters renewed it on April 7, 2026, and the renewal vote comes around every five years. The city's boundary map shows whether an address is inside the limits.

Which counties is Kansas City, Missouri in?

The city's land reaches across Jackson, Clay and Platte counties, so the county that sends your tax bill depends on where in the city the home is. The wider Missouri side of the metro adds Cass, Lafayette, Ray, Clinton, Caldwell and Bates counties. The county's property records will tell you which one a specific home is in.

When does I-70 close in Kansas City?

I-70 is scheduled to be closed between Prospect Avenue and Van Brunt Boulevard from January 2027 through December 2027 for bridge and roadway work. MoDOT plans to route through traffic around it on I-435 and I-470, and says nearly all cross streets stay open. The full Improve I-70 Kansas City project runs from spring 2025 to spring 2028.

Are the Chiefs leaving Missouri?

The Chiefs announced an agreement with the State of Kansas to play in a domed stadium in Wyandotte County beginning with the 2031 NFL season, with a training facility and headquarters in Olathe. The Arrowhead Stadium name stays behind. The Royals are staying in Missouri and moving to a new ballpark at Crown Center, targeted for the 2030 season.

Is there a transfer tax when you buy a home in Missouri?

No. Missouri voters approved Constitutional Amendment 3 on November 2, 2010, which bars the state, counties and cities from imposing any new tax on the sale or transfer of real estate. Closings here run through title companies, which handle the title search, the escrow, the settlement and the recording.

What is the Northland?

The Northland is everything north of the Missouri River: the Clay County and Platte County parts of Kansas City plus Gladstone, Liberty, Parkville, Riverside, Smithville, Kearney and Platte City. Pioneer Crossing, Metro North Crossing and Google's Project Mica are all being built there.

Does Missouri tax my car every year?

Yes. Missouri taxes personal property, including vehicles, based on what you own as of January 1. You file a declaration with your county assessor by March 1, and the bill is due December 31. A client moving from a state without a personal property tax should plan for that December bill.