Lawrence ends three-year streak of declining home sales, but 2024 selling prices were highest in the region

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An AdobeStock image shows models of homes.

Lawrence in 2024 ended its three year streak of declining homes sales, and bested area communities in almost every measurable category.

The one category it didn’t, though, is the one you measure with your pocketbook.

Lawrence finished the year with the highest median selling price of homes, topping the metro areas of Kansas City, Wichita, Manhattan and Topeka, new numbers from across the state show. At $315,000, Lawrence’s median selling price was a full $10,000 more than the median selling price in the Kansas City metro area, $70,000 more than Manhattan’s and about $100,000 more than what you would pay in either Wichita or Topeka.

Despite the price discrepancy, Lawrence was more successful at selling homes in 2024 than any of the other communities, at least by one key measure. Lawrence home sales increased by 4.7% compared to 2023 totals. That rate was nearly twice as high as any of the other large metro areas.

The selling price data will lend more fuel to the long-running concern that Lawrence has a housing affordability problem. Indeed, when you compare the selling prices to typical family incomes, Lawrence residents are paying a far greater percentage of their wages to housing than residents are in several other communities.

Using Census data for what a household with two, full-time working adults — one male and one female — earn, the median selling price of a Lawrence home is more than 2.8 times greater than their annual wages. Most other communities in the area checked with home prices that were less than 2.5 times a household’s annual wages.

The higher-than-average home prices comes at the same time that Lawrence is building a record-low number of new homes. As the Journal-World reported earlier this month, Lawrence issued permits for just 57 single family homes, which was well below the previous low of 79 homes in 2022.

Local real estate leaders continue to say that a lack of new homes on the market is putting upward pressure on housing prices. The Lawrence market is experiencing many of the signs of a market with “limited housing inventory,” Bailey Stuart, president of the Lawrence Board of Realtors, said in the group’s year-end report.

“Housing supply still falls short of meeting demand,” Stuart said.

Here’s a closer look at the year-end numbers for Lawrence and other surrounding communities.

Home sales increased in Lawrence by the greatest rate of any the communities, although Lawrence continues to be the smallest geographic area, and thus has the lowest number of total sales. Numbers listed include the growth rate from the end of 2023 to the end of 2024, and the total number of 2024 residential sales that occurred in the market.

• Lawrence: up 4.7% (918 sales)

• Kansas City: up 2.3% (36,368 sales)

• Topeka: up 2.7% (3,523 sales)

• Wichita: up 0.8% (9,533 sales)

• Manhattan: up 1.5% (1,643 sales)

While Lawrence had the highest median selling price in terms of dollars, it had the lowest rate of increase in 2024. In other words, while home prices were still cheaper in other locations, the gap between Lawrence and those other communities generally shrunk in 2024. Lawrence’s 4.3% increase was basically the same as the 4.1% increase Lawrence posted in 2023. That’s significant, given that Lawrence home prices had been increasing by double-digit percentage gains previously. Here’s a look at the median selling prices in each market and how much they changed from the end of 2023 to end of 2024.

• Lawrence: up 4.3% ($315,000)

• Kansas City: up 5.2% ($305,000)

• Topeka: up 8.1% ($200,000)

• Wichita: up 4.7%, ($225,000)

• Manhattan: up 4.3% ($245,000)

The Census Bureau has released information from its 2023 five-year American Community Survey that shows how much full-time workers in various metro areas earn. I’ve taken that information and compared it to the median selling prices for the various markets. Here’s a look at the total income for a household with two full-time workers — one male and one female — and how much higher home prices are than annual incomes.

• Lawrence: Median home price 2.82 times annual income of $111,329

• Manhattan: 2.67 times annual income of $91,643

• Kansas City: 2.42 times annual income of $122,466

• Wichita: 2.16 times annual income of $104,085

• Topeka: 1.84 times annual income of $108,178

Real estate professional measure how many homes are on the market versus how many homes are selling during a typical month. They then calculate how many month’s worth of supply a market has available at any given time. The long-held rule has been that a market with 4 to 6 months worth of supply is fairly balanced between buyers and seller, meaning that one side doesn’t have too much power to control prices in the market. Housing supplies are tight across the country, and none of the communities in the region are close to that 4 month to 6 month supply number. Sellers have the advantage in all of the markets. But Lawrence ended 2024 with second amount of supply. Also worth noting is that only Lawrence and Manhattan saw their supplies shrink during the year. Everyone else saw their supplies grow.

• Lawrence: 1.6 (down from 1.9 months in 2023)

• Kansas City: 2.1 (up from 2.0 months in 2023)

• Topeka: 1.4 (up from 1.2 months in 2023)

• Wichita: 2.3 (up from 1.7 months in 2023)

• Manhattan: 2.0 (down from 2.3 months in 2023)