Buying a Home in the St. Louis, MO Area: The City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County and What Is Being Built

Somewhere in your first week in St. Louis, somebody is going to ask where you went to high school. St. Louis Magazine calls it the standard local opening question, the way people here place each other (St. Louis Magazine). The same magazine gives toasted ravioli to the Hill, the neighborhood whose first Italian residents called it la Montagna when they arrived in the 1880s to work the clay mines and brickyards (The Hill Neighborhood Association). It traces gooey butter cake to a 1930s baker who mixed up the proportions on a coffee cake. The zoo in Forest Park charges nothing at the gate, because a cultural tax district pays for it, and the art museum, the science center and the history museum are free the same way (Saint Louis Zoo). And the city that holds all of this is in no county at all.

A home on the Missouri side of St. Louis is in a city neighborhood like Soulard or the Hill, a St. Louis County town like Clayton, Kirkwood or Chesterfield, or a suburb like St. Charles, Wentzville or Arnold. 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 work out of Bluffton, South Carolina, and I wrote this page for anyone thinking about buying a home on the Missouri side of St. Louis. The City of St. Louis is its own government and is not in any county. St. Louis County next door is made up of dozens of separate municipalities, and the rest of the Missouri side spreads across St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln and Warren counties. I'll walk through those places first, then the roads, the schools and the hospitals, and after that the things worth looking up on any address before you compare it with another one. Everything here comes from public sources, cited beside the facts that matter most, and it was gathered in late September 2026. The Illinois side of the same metro, the Metro East, runs under Illinois law, so I keep it separate.

Why is the City of St. Louis in no county?

City residents voted in the 1870s to separate from St. Louis County, and the two have been separate governments ever since (City of Clayton). Somebody here who says "the City" and "the County" means two separate governments, and St. Louis County never includes the City of St. Louis.

St. Louis County's seat is Clayton, and the county is made up of dozens of municipalities plus unincorporated land (Wikipedia: Municipalities of St. Louis County). The county's own list is the place to confirm which one an address is in. For you, the municipality is the government that sets the rules that touch a closing: the occupancy inspection, trash and fire service, and the building code. Two homes a street apart can be in two different cities, and the homework section below shows what that changes.

Each part of the St. Louis area, and what is happening there

Downtown and the riverfront

The National Park Service runs Gateway Arch National Park, the museum under the Arch and the tram to the top, and the site became a national park in 2018 (National Park Service). Two blocks west on Market Street, Citygarden is a sculpture garden the city owns and the Gateway Foundation maintains, open since July 2009 (City of St. Louis Parks). The 28-story north tower of the Millennium Hotel on South 4th Street was being cleared in May 2026, and the exterior is expected to be fully demolished by the end of 2027 (First Alert 4, May 21, 2026).

The 7th Street project between Ballpark Village and Washington Avenue was finished in July 2025, with protected bike and pedestrian lanes, new lighting, crosswalks and repaving from Walnut to Washington (First Alert 4, July 18, 2025). Energizer Park, the 22,423-seat home of St. Louis CITY SC, opened in November 2022 under its original name, CITYPARK (MLSsoccer.com). City Museum fills a former shoe factory at 750 North 16th Street, and the St. Louis Aquarium is inside the restored Union Station train shed.

Soulard, the Hill and Dogtown

Soulard is the oldest residential district in the City of St. Louis, named for Antoine Soulard, surveyor general for Upper Louisiana in the late 1700s. Most of its buildings date from between the Civil War and the 1904 World's Fair (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation). The city runs Soulard Farmers Market at 730 Carroll Street, the oldest operating public market in St. Louis. Soulard is also where about 3,150 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency staff are moving out of during 2026, as their new campus in north city opens (STLPR, September 26, 2025).

The Hill and Dogtown grew out of the same 1880s work. The Hill's clay mines and brickyards drew the immigrants who named it, and Dogtown, the Clayton-Tamm neighborhood south of Forest Park, grew from the same clay, coal and railroad jobs. Its southeastern edge borders the Hill (City of St. Louis: Clayton-Tamm).

Forest Park, the Central West End and Tower Grove

Forest Park covers about 1,326 acres, and the zoo, the art museum, the science center and the history museum are all inside its boundary (City of St. Louis Parks). On the park's east side, the Washington University Medical Campus is partway through BJC's Campus Renewal Project. The project includes a new 16-story inpatient tower of 558,000 square feet with 280 private rooms, built on the site of the former Queeny Tower (BJC HealthCare).

South of there, Henry Shaw gave the city the land for Tower Grove Park in 1868, and the park runs about 1.6 miles from Kingshighway east to Grand (Tower Grove Park). Its farmers' market lets vendors sell only what they grow or make themselves, from within 150 miles of St. Louis (Tower Grove Farmers' Market). The Missouri Botanical Garden next door covers 79 acres, including a 14-acre Japanese strolling garden, and people here still call it Shaw's Garden. Garden Variety Deli opened at 3131 Morgan Ford Road in Tower Grove South this year (Sauce Magazine), and The Noble Crown opened in the Central West End with cocktails and shareable plates (St. Louis Magazine, August 2026).

North St. Louis

Next NGA West, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's new campus, covers 97 acres at Jefferson and Cass avenues in the St. Louis Place neighborhood. It holds a 700,000-square-foot office building, two garages and a visitor center. Construction began in 2020 and the campus opened in 2025, with the agency's staff of about 3,150 moving over from Soulard during 2026 (NGA). The builders put the cost at $1.7 billion (McCarthy HITT).

The May 16, 2025 tornado destroyed more than 5,000 structures across the region, and recovery in north city is still under way in 2026 (STLPR). Publicly funded demolition of damaged property began in May 2026, and the city has approved more than 120 properties for demolition with state money (City of St. Louis). The city's water division has assistance enrollment open through October 31, 2026, with reduced rates running through 2028. If you are looking at a home in the tornado path, the city's STL Recovers page is the place to check what programs apply to that address (City of St. Louis).

Clayton, University City, Kirkwood and Webster Groves

Clayton is the county seat. In University City, LOCAL on Delmar broke ground on the Loop in September 2024. It is a five-story building with 259 apartments, 399 parking spaces and more than 7,000 square feet of street-level retail, and completion was expected in summer 2026 (Subtext).

Kirkwood has accepted a plan from Double Eagle Development for 202 housing units on the 5.9-acre former public works site between Taylor and Fillmore, next to the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. The plan calls for six four-story buildings, about 275,000 square feet in all (FOX 2; Hoodline, August 2026). Downtown Kirkwood holds The Magic House, the children's museum on South Kirkwood Road, and a farmers' market just east of the historic train station that runs from spring through early fall. The National Museum of Transportation on Barrett Station Road keeps more than seventy locomotives on 42 acres (National Museum of Transportation). Lona's Lil Eats opened a second location in Kirkwood in August 2026 (STLPR, September 1, 2026). In Webster Groves, residential valuations rose 13.8% overall in the 2025 reassessment, which I come back to in the tax section (DMA).

Chesterfield, Wildwood and West County

Chesterfield Mall is gone, except for Dillard's and Macy's, and demolition of the rest finished in April 2025. Downtown Chesterfield is The Staenberg Group's $2 billion, 4.5-million-square-foot redevelopment of the site. It is planned for up to 2,363 residential units with ground-floor retail, a renovated Macy's and a modernized Dillard's reopening in late 2026. By fall 2026 the site is to be fully graded, with the park, sidewalks, bike paths, lighting and signage in place (Shopping Center Business; West Newsmagazine). The City Council also approved an expansion of the Downtown Chesterfield Special Business District (St. Louis Magazine). A special business district is a taxing district that attaches to the property inside it, so if you are looking in that part of Chesterfield, it is worth asking whether the address is inside the district.

The Chesterfield Valley was farmland called Gumbo Flats until the Great Flood of 1993 put it under water. The levee was then rebuilt for the 500-year event: 11.5 miles along the Missouri River and Bonhomme Creek, to 3 feet above the 500-year flood elevation, with $72.3 million raised by a levee tax district (Stantec; STLPR). A 500-year flood is one with a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year.

In Wildwood, McKelvey Homes broke ground on The Reserve at Wildwood, a 50-acre, 115-home community at the southwest corner of Route 109 and Route 100, with homes from 1,600 to 4,000 square feet (West Newsmagazine). The city publishes an interactive Current Developments map with each project's status and hearing dates, and its Master Plan 2026 Update is in progress (City of Wildwood). Wildwood also holds Greensfelder County Park at 1,734 acres, Rockwoods Reservation at 1,843 acres and Babler State Park at 888 acres. Creve Coeur Lake Memorial Park in Maryland Heights wraps 2,145 acres around the largest natural lake in the region (St. Louis County Parks).

North County and Lambert

Boeing is building a $1.8 billion expansion next to Lambert: 1.1 million square feet of new advanced assembly space and a post-assembly operations center, tied to the F-47 fighter. The company committed to 500 new jobs in exchange for $155 million in state incentives, construction runs in phases from 2026 to 2030, and the first aircraft is targeted for 2030 (Construction Dive; Missouri DED). Boeing employs nearly 16,000 people across north St. Louis County, St. Charles County and St. Clair County, Illinois (STLPR, March 21, 2025).

St. Louis Lambert International is consolidating all commercial operations into the Terminal 1 footprint, a program of roughly $3 billion. The design team reached the 30% milestone in 2026, rising costs prompted changes including fewer gates, and the first portions are expected in late 2028 with full buildout in the early 2030s (First Alert 4, July 24, 2026). NorthPark, a 550-acre business park with more than 5 million square feet planned or built, is the corporate home of Express Scripts (St. Louis Regional Freightway).

St. Louis County won an $18.2 million federal grant to rebuild 1.5 miles of West Florissant Avenue from Stein Road to Ferguson Avenue, through Ferguson and Dellwood (St. Louis Economic Development Partnership). On the same corridor, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis announced an Urban League Plaza anchored by a First Bank branch, with restaurant, banquet and small commercial bays and an adjacent 44-unit senior housing building (Hoodline, February 2026). The Ferguson Farmers Market gathers at the Plaza at 501 on South Florissant Road.

South County and the Meramec

Jefferson Barracks Park in Lemay is above the Mississippi on 426 acres of a former military post, and the Missouri Civil War Museum occupies its 1905 Post Exchange building. The Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in Grantwood Village preserves White Haven, where the Grant household lived from 1854 to 1859 (National Park Service). Mercy Hospital South serves this side of the county. SSM Health St. Clare Hospital in Fenton is a Level I stroke center, and it holds a Level II designation for heart attack care (SSM Health). Miss Sheri's Cafeteria in south county closed in August 2026 after more than five decades (STLPR).

The Meramec River runs along the county's southern edge, and the towns there have spent decades managing it. Valley Park built a 3.2-mile levee designed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2007, at a cost of about $50 million, protecting about 7,000 residents (ProPublica). Further up the river, Route 66 State Park in Eureka covers the former site of Times Beach, with the 1935 Bridgehead Inn roadhouse as its visitor center (Missouri State Parks).

St. Charles, St. Peters, O'Fallon and Lake Saint Louis

The brick complex at 200 South Main Street in St. Charles served as Missouri's first state capitol from 1821 to 1826, while Jefferson City was being built (Missouri State Parks). Down the hill, Frontier Park holds the eastern end of the 237-mile Katy Trail at mile 39.5, the MKT depot and the Lewis & Clark Boat House and Museum. Bench Racers, a food truck park, opened at 1801 North 2nd Street in Frenchtown this year (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). North of the old town, New Town at St. Charles is a master plan of about 755 acres and roughly 5,700 homes, condos and apartments at full build. It is laid out as five walkable neighborhoods around a series of lakes, built in about ten phases (New Town General Assembly).

St. Peters runs the Rec-Plex on Mexico Road, with indoor ice rinks and a 50-meter competition pool, and 370 Lakeside Park, 500 acres around a 140-acre lake. In O'Fallon, the Dardenne Greenway will add a 1.5-mile, 12-foot shared-use path from Bluebird Meadow Park to Sports Park and Route K, with a new bridge over Dardenne Creek. As of April 29, 2026 the city was waiting on federal right-of-way approval (City of O'Fallon). Interruption Public House and Brewery opened at 330 Sonderen Street this year (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). In Lake Saint Louis, SSM Health announced a transformed cancer center and expanded services at St. Joseph Hospital in July 2026 (SSM Health). Lake Saint Louis is also one of the cities that inspects a home before it is sold, which the homework section covers.

Wentzville

Wentzville had 48,646 people at the 2024 Census estimate, making it Missouri's 15th-largest city, and the city's own plan cites about 27% growth since 2018 (City of Wentzville). Four big projects are under way there at once.

• GM's Wentzville Assembly is getting a $157 million investment announced on July 24, 2026: new paint process equipment, a 28,000-square-foot expansion and modernized paint shop infrastructure, about 18 months of work. The plant opened in 1983, has about 4,100 workers and builds the Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana. GM said the investment is not expected to add employees (GM).
• Mercy Hospital Wentzville is a $650 million campus on 60 acres near I-70 and I-64, with 75 inpatient beds, built to serve St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren counties. Ground was broken in April 2025, hospital tower work was set to begin in early 2026, and completion is reported as 2030 (STLPR, April 25, 2025).
• Proposition O passed with 66% in August 2026: $185 million in bonds to rebuild Heritage Elementary, which was built in 1957, and to renovate Wentzville Middle and Holt High. The work is expected to take four to five years (STLPR, August 4, 2026).
• Improve I-70, the $600 million project MoDOT calls the biggest in its history, runs through town. It is in the roads section below.

Just outside the city limits, in unincorporated St. Charles County off Highway N near Perry Cate Boulevard, the County Council took a 6-1 vote in February 2026 on Trailside Farms. The plan is a subdivision of nearly 480 homes on more than 250 acres: 385 single-family homes, 89 townhomes, eight commercial lots, parks, trails, a ball field, a community garden and an ice rink (FOX 2). Please check the county's record for where the plan stands today before you count on it.

Jefferson County

Arnold is on the Meramec, and the city's floodplain office publishes its flood history, including the record floods of 2015 and 2017, so you can look up any address before you make an offer (City of Arnold). Festus annexed 240 acres north of US 67 and west of County Road CC on November 24, 2025. On March 30, 2026 the council approved CRG's data center project on a site of more than 300 acres, with a promised $6 billion investment (FOX 2). The I-55 corridor through Pevely, Herculaneum, Festus and Crystal City is in the roads section. For a day out, Mastodon State Historic Site in Imperial preserves the Kimmswick Bone Bed, where scientists found the first solid evidence that people and American mastodons overlapped in eastern North America (Missouri State Parks). The Sandy Creek Covered Bridge near Hillsboro, first built in 1872, is one of four left in the state.

Franklin, Lincoln and Warren counties

Washington, on the Missouri River in Franklin County, is anchored by Mercy Hospital Washington, East Central College and PLZ Aeroscience, and the regional chamber names manufacturing as the county's main industry (Greater St. Louis, Inc.). The area chamber runs the Washington Farmers' Market in a renovated historic building on West Main Street.

In Lincoln County, the Lincoln County R-III district in Troy spans Lincoln, Warren and Montgomery counties and is the state's 25th-largest, with more than 7,000 students across 14 schools (Lincoln County R-III). Cuivre River State Park, about three miles east of Troy, holds 55-acre Lake Lincoln. In Warren County, the Wright City R-II district serves Wright City plus parts of Foristell and Innsbrook and part of southern Lincoln County (Wikipedia: Wright City R-II). Houston Homes is building Alder Creek there, 151 home sites off Highway F.

The road projects that change a commute

I-70 through Wentzville. MoDOT's Improve I-70 project, at $600 million, is the biggest in the department's history. Construction was scheduled to begin in spring 2025 and finish in 2028. It adds five westbound and four eastbound lanes through the railroad bottleneck with a new railroad bridge, rebuilds the westbound exit at Route Z, and gives the westbound I-64 to westbound I-70 ramp two dedicated lanes (MoDOT; St. Charles County). If you'll commute on I-70 from St. Charles, Warren or Lincoln County, you'll be driving through that work until 2028.

I-270 North and the Chain of Rocks. The bridge and pavement replacement where I-270 crosses the Mississippi is expected to be complete by 2026, with a new diamond interchange at Riverview. MoDOT was still urging caution around the work on September 17, 2026 (First Alert 4). The wider corridor work adds lanes from Lilac Avenue to west of Route H and replaces the bridges over Route 367 and Bellefontaine Road. It is expected to split into two projects, one starting in 2026 and one in 2028 (MoDOT). If your commute runs I-270 through north county or over the river into Illinois, you'll have lane shifts on some part of that stretch for the next few years.

I-270 at Conway and Ladue. The bridge over Conway Road, just north of I-64, is being replaced with completion expected in summer 2026, and the Ladue Road bridge deck is being widened and replaced (MoDOT). That is the stretch of I-270 between I-64 and Olive, so a West County drive that uses it to reach I-64 goes through the work.

I-55 in Jefferson County. A three-year design-build that started in 2024 covers 12 miles through Pevely, Herculaneum, Festus and Crystal City. It adds a lane along the 8 miles from the Route Z interchange in Pevely to I-55 and US 67 in Festus, and it addresses 27 bridges, 14 of them replaced (MoDOT). A separate 9.7-mile resurfacing of US 61/67 runs from Route M near Barnhart to American Legion Drive in Festus. If you'll drive from Festus or Pevely into south county or the city, the added lane is what you get at the end, and the bridge work is what you drive through until then.

The Brickline Greenway. The $245 million greenway entered 2026 more than 64% funded, with completion targeted for 2030. The 0.85-mile Market Street segment from 22nd to Compton opened on April 13, 2026, another segment starts construction in fall 2026, and the Cortex station to Forest Park segment is set for 2028 or 2029 (Great Rivers Greenway). For a home near Market Street or Cortex, it is a way to bike or walk to Forest Park without getting in the car.

The MetroLink Green Line. The north-south line through the city expects property acquisition and utility relocation as early as 2026 and main construction in 2027, contingent on federal grant money (MetroLink Green Line). Nothing is running yet, so please do not plan a commute around it from a home you buy this year.

The schools, the closings and the bond votes

I'll stick to buildings and bonds here. The district map across the metro is fragmented, so please confirm the district for any address with the district itself rather than going by the city name.

St. Louis Public Schools is working through a consolidation plan. A June 2026 draft considered closing dozens of buildings, and after community pressure the district pushed its timeline back twice. The revised proposal closes 14 buildings by STLPR's count and keeps Adams, Bryan Hill, Humboldt, Jefferson, Laclede, Lyon and Peabody open (STLPR, August 26, 2026). Many magnet schools would become neighborhood schools, and the gifted magnets, Betty Wheeler and Mallinckrodt, would stay. First Alert 4 reported 12 buildings closed or repurposed on the same day, so the count was still moving. The superintendent presents a final recommendation on October 27 and the board votes on November 10, with changes possible from the 2027-28 school year (STLPR, September 9, 2026).

Wentzville passed Proposition O in August 2026, the $185 million bond described above. Hazelwood voters approved a measure for the district's operating budget at the same election. Francis Howell is asking voters on November 3, 2026 to approve two no-tax-rate-increase propositions, one for operations and one for facilities, after moving its planned bond ask up by about five months (STLPR, July 30, 2026).

School levies are the largest line on a Missouri property tax bill, and they are set district by district. A bond or a levy that passes changes the bill in that district the following tax year, so a vote like Wentzville's or Francis Howell's reaches your monthly payment.

The hospitals, open today and under construction

BJC's Campus Renewal Project in the Central West End, with the new inpatient tower described above, is the biggest hospital build in the city. In St. Charles County, the systems are building toward the same corner. Mercy has its $650 million Wentzville campus under way, SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in Wentzville has doubled its emergency room capacity (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and SSM expanded its cancer center in Lake Saint Louis in July 2026. South county has Mercy Hospital South and SSM Health St. Clare in Fenton, and Franklin County has Mercy Hospital Washington. Mercy Wentzville is not open yet, so if you are comparing two addresses in St. Charles or Lincoln County, it is worth checking the drive from each to the emergency rooms open today.

The city and the county the home is in

By the Census Bureau's 2024 estimates, St. Louis County has 992,929 people, St. Charles County 423,726, the City of St. Louis 279,695, Jefferson County 231,888, Franklin County 107,256, Lincoln County 65,888 and Warren County 38,478 (U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024). Four things depend on which city and which county the home is in.

The occupancy inspection. Many municipalities in St. Louis County require an occupancy or transfer inspection before a home can be sold or newly occupied, and each city sets its own rules. In Ballwin, for example, every occupied building must be inspected and certified against the city's housing code before a sale or a new occupancy (St. Louis County). The City of St. Louis has its own residential occupancy permit (City of St. Louis), and Lake Saint Louis inspects homes before sale as well. The St. Louis chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors keeps a directory of which municipality requires what at stlashi.net. Please look up the city before you write an offer, because the inspection and any repairs it calls for become part of the timeline.

The 1% earnings tax. The City of St. Louis taxes wages and local business profits at 1% for everyone who lives in the city and everyone who works in it. A non-resident pays on income earned inside the city limits, apportioned by days physically worked there. Voters renewed it on April 7, 2026 by 85% to 15% for another five years, and it brings in about 36% of the city's general revenue (STLPR; City of St. Louis Collector of Revenue). It is not on the property tax bill, so it never shows up in a listing, but it belongs in your monthly budget if you are choosing between a home in the city and one in the county.

The Zoo-Museum District. Property owners in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County, and nowhere else in the metro, pay a cultural district property tax. It supports the zoo, the art museum, the science center, the history museum and the botanical garden. Net receipts were about $91.6 million in 2024 (Zoo-Museum District). That is why the zoo charges no admission. If you buy in St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln or Warren County, you do not pay it.

Special districts. A levee tax district pays for the Chesterfield Valley levee, and the Downtown Chesterfield Special Business District attaches to the property inside it. The county's property records and the city's planning office can tell you whether an address is inside one.

Missouri property tax on a St. Louis-area home

Missouri assesses the home you live in at 19% of its market value, and the levy is then applied per $100 of that assessed value (Missouri State Tax Commission). The levy is simply the tax rate, and Missouri quotes it as dollars per $100 of assessed value rather than as a percentage of the price. With an invented $300,000 market value:

Market value (invented)              $300,000
Residential assessment ratio        x     19%
                                    ---------
Assessed value                        $57,000
Divided by $100                           570
Each $1.00 of levy per $100 costs       $570 a year

The county's own levy is a small slice of the total. The school district's levy is the largest line, and the city, the fire district, the library, the community college and the Zoo-Museum District add theirs on top. So two homes with the same market value in two different districts get two different bills.

Reassessment happens in every odd-numbered year. The 2025 reassessment valued homes as of January 1, 2025, and those values set both the 2025 and the 2026 bills. Webster Groves residential valuations rose 13.8% in that cycle (DMA). The next reassessment is 2027, so if you close in 2026 you should expect a new value on your 2027 bill. In St. Louis County, an appeal is filed with the Board of Equalization from May 1, and the statutory deadline is the second Monday in July, which was July 13, 2026 this cycle. All evidence is due the same day (St. Louis County Board of Equalization). I explain how a purchase and a reassessment reach your bill in what happens to your property taxes after you buy.

The property tax caps are county by county. A state law signed in June 2025 lets each county cap annual property tax increases, but only if that county's voters approve it. The question went to the ballot in 97 of Missouri's 114 counties in April 2026 (Missouri Independent). In this metro, Jefferson and Franklin counties approved a cap. St. Charles County voters rejected theirs, Proposition RT, with 59% voting no (STLPR, April 6, 2026). The City of St. Louis and St. Louis County were left out of the law entirely and did not vote.

The senior freeze is a different program. Missouri's senior property tax freeze, for owners 62 and older on the home they own and live in as of January 1, 2026, also runs county by county. St. Charles County's 2026 application window ran from March 1 to July 6, and St. Louis County extended its deadline to July 10 (St. Charles County; First Alert 4). St. Charles County voters said no to the general cap. The county still runs the senior freeze, because the two are separate programs.

Missouri also taxes personal property. Vehicles, trailers and boats are assessed at 33 1/3% of value and billed every year (Missouri State Tax Commission). If you are moving from a state without that tax, it is a monthly budget item worth adding before you set a purchase price.

What is a subdivision trust indenture?

In St. Louis County, the recorded rules of a subdivision are called trust indentures, and the board that enforces them is a Board of Trustees. The indenture is filed with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds, and it sets the subdivision's boundaries, the association's powers and the rules. The trustees collect annual and special assessments, and they maintain the common ground, the street lights and any private streets. Cities generally have no legal authority to enforce an indenture (St. Louis County). Wentzville publishes its own guide for subdivisions and associations in St. Charles County (City of Wentzville).

If you buy in a subdivision with an indenture, please ask for the recorded indenture and the resale documents early. They list what is due at purchase and every year, and the yearly assessment is part of the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on. I do not quote dues figures on this page, because the only reliable source for a subdivision's assessment is its own recorded documents.

Flood and earthquake insurance on a St. Louis-area home

The flood geography on the Missouri side is the Missouri River bottoms, meaning the Chesterfield Valley and the river edge of St. Charles County, and the Meramec through Pacific, Valley Park, Fenton and Arnold. For a property in FEMA's high-risk flood area, called the Special Flood Hazard Area, a lender with a federally backed loan will require flood insurance, and that premium becomes part of your monthly payment (City of Arnold). St. Louis County communities have spent three decades buying out land along 108 miles of the Meramec, with roughly 9,000 acres preserved as of 2013. FEMA estimates the buyouts and conservation prevent an average of $7.7 million in flood damage a year (Flood Economics). It is worth asking the seller about past flooding and checking FEMA's map for the address, because a Missouri seller's disclosure may not cover it, and the answer tells you whether a flood premium belongs in your payment. I explain how to price flood insurance into your payment before you make an offer in buying a home in a flood zone.

Earthquake coverage is worth a look in Missouri. A standard homeowners policy excludes earthquake damage, so the coverage is an endorsement or a separate policy, and its deductible is a percentage of the insured value, typically 5% to 20%. The Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance reports that about 85% of the market now offers deductibles under 10%. The share of companies declining to write in the New Madrid area fell from 19% in 2024 to 14% in 2025. The department puts the average annual premium for a $200,000 home at about $398 in St. Louis, against $2,134 in Caruthersville in the New Madrid zone (Missouri DCI; DCI New Madrid report). I walk through how to price it before closing in earthquake coverage in Missouri.

Renting the home out short term

The City of St. Louis passed a short-term rental licensing ordinance in 2023, but a court order has blocked enforcement of its permit requirements since April 2025, and the pause was still in effect in 2026 (City of St. Louis). The ordinance's framework requires permits for units and platforms, limits how many units one owner can operate, and allows revocation for nuisance, and a 3% fee on stays still applies. Please do not count on short-term rental income from a city property without a current check on where that case stands. A subdivision's trust indenture can also restrict rentals on its own, in any city or county.

These facts and your mortgage payment

St. Louis REALTORS' August 2026 report showed the residential median sale price up 6.6% from a year earlier and active single-family inventory in the city and county up 15.2% (St. Louis REALTORS). All seven Missouri counties on this side of the metro are at the national FHA floor and the standard conforming limit for 2026, and the box below this article lists the figures. The FHA floor is the lowest FHA loan limit in the country, the one that applies in a county where home prices are not high enough to earn a bigger limit. The conforming limit is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy in a county, and a loan above it is called a jumbo loan. None of the seven counties is a high-cost county, so neither limit is raised here.

The county, school and district levies, the homeowners, flood and earthquake premiums, and any trust indenture assessment are all inside the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on. The earnings tax, the personal property tax and the utility bill are not in that payment, but they are in your life, so I'd rather you set a purchase price with them counted. Missouri's housing finance agency, the Missouri Housing Development Commission, runs two programs worth knowing by name. First Place is for first-time buyers and qualified veterans, and Next Step is for first-time and repeat buyers above the First Place income limits, both through MHDC-certified lenders (MHDC).

Pre-approval in Missouri covers what the letter is based on and what gets reviewed. If you are a veteran, how VA loans work in Missouri covers entitlement, the funding fee and the property tax exemption Missouri actually has. If you own a business, self-employed mortgages in Missouri covers how your income gets documented. The Missouri page covers the constitutional ban on new transfer taxes and the rest of the state's closing rules.

Once you're ready, you can see your options for a purchase anywhere on the Missouri side of St. Louis: pricing 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 assessed value of a specific property, and which levies apply to it, are set by that county's assessor and collector, so please confirm them with the county office.

Common questions

Is the City of St. Louis in St. Louis County?

No. The City of St. Louis is an independent city, and it has been separate from St. Louis County since residents voted to separate in the 1870s. The city has its own assessor, its own collector, its own earnings tax and its own occupancy permit. St. Louis County's seat is Clayton, and the county is made up of dozens of separate municipalities plus unincorporated land.

Do I pay the St. Louis earnings tax if I live in the city?

Yes. The city's earnings tax applies to everyone who lives in the City of St. Louis and everyone who works in it, on wages and local business profits. A non-resident who works in the city pays on the income earned inside the city limits, apportioned by the days physically worked there. Voters renewed the tax on April 7, 2026 for another five years.

Did my Missouri county pass the property tax cap?

It depends on the county. In the April 2026 elections, Jefferson County and Franklin County approved a cap on annual property tax increases, and St. Charles County voters rejected theirs. The City of St. Louis and St. Louis County were excluded from the state law and did not vote. The senior property tax freeze for owners 62 and older is a separate program that each county runs on its own.

Do I need an occupancy inspection to buy a home in St. Louis County?

In many of the county's municipalities, yes. Each city sets its own rules on whether a home has to be inspected and certified before it is sold or newly occupied, and Ballwin is one that requires it. The City of St. Louis has its own residential occupancy permit, and Lake Saint Louis in St. Charles County inspects homes before sale as well. The St. Louis chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors keeps a directory of which city requires what. Please look up the city before you write an offer.

What is a subdivision trust indenture?

It is what St. Louis County calls the recorded rules of a subdivision, and the board that enforces them is a Board of Trustees. The indenture is filed with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds, and the trustees collect annual and special assessments and maintain the common ground, street lights and private streets. Cities generally cannot enforce an indenture, so the trustees do. Please ask for the recorded indenture and the resale documents before you commit.

When does Missouri reassess my home?

In every odd-numbered year. The 2025 reassessment valued homes as of January 1, 2025, and those values set both the 2025 and 2026 bills, so the next new value arrives on the 2027 bill. In St. Louis County, an appeal is filed with the Board of Equalization from May 1, with a deadline on the second Monday in July.

Do I need earthquake insurance in St. Louis?

A lender does not usually require it, but a standard Missouri homeowners policy excludes earthquake damage, so it is worth pricing before you close. The coverage comes as an endorsement or a separate policy, and the deductible is a percentage of the insured value rather than a flat figure. The Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance reports that most of the market now offers deductibles under 10%.

What is being built in Wentzville?

Four large projects at once. GM is modernizing the paint shop at its Wentzville Assembly plant over about 18 months. Mercy is building a 75-bed hospital campus on 60 acres near I-70 and I-64, with completion reported for 2030. The school district passed Proposition O in August 2026 to rebuild Heritage Elementary and renovate Wentzville Middle and Holt High. And MoDOT's Improve I-70 project runs through town until 2028.