Jan

17

Housing meltdown hits hard in Downtown and the Kansas suburbs

January 17, 2009 | 1 Comment

The mortgage crisis and credit crunch have crippled the national housing industry, and new local numbers show how that is playing out in Kansas City.  The KC Home Builders Association 2008 report shows that the number of housing permits dropped by a third from 2007.  Single family houses dropped by half, while apartments actually increased by two-thirds.

And it looks like the Downtown housing boom has come to a halt for now.  Only 50 condos and 60 apartments were permitted in all of KC south of the river, yet more than 500 were gained north of the river. The surge in new apartments was definitely a suburban phenomenon that Downtown missed out on, even though demand for Downtown apartments is so strong that many buildings have waiting lists.

In the suburbs, development continues to shift from the southwest to the north.  For the first time ever the Northland built more new houses than Johnson County.  JoCo used to build almost of half the region’s new housing, but now it’s down to 29% and Clay/Platte Counties are up to a combined 33%. The Clay County sector of KCMO was only down 22%, compared with declines of 60% in Lee’s Summit, Lenexa, and Shawnee. The Northland was also home to the only cities that actually issued more permits in 2008 than 2007: Parkville, Riverside, and Gladstone.  Eastern Jackson County is even worse off than JoCo, with Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs down more than 60% and Grain Valley down 80%.

Categories: Downtown, Real Estate, Suburbs


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