Bates City, Missouri.
Typical home $373,504 (+6.5% in a year). Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,172 (+149%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $22,758 +6%
- $350,746$373,504 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $94,151 +34%
- $279,353$373,504 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Bates City$1,960
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Bates City, MO rose 6.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bates City, Lafayette County, Missouri
Bates City is a city of 219 people in Lafayette County. Unemployment in Lafayette County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Lafayette County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Bates City is a very small town in Lafayette County, Missouri, with few residents and a quiet, close-knit feel. Typical homes here are worth more than many people might expect for a place this size, and the share of residents living below the poverty line is low. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers turn properly hot; rain and melted snow arrive in fair amounts across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also common. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree, and a small share work from home. Across Lafayette County, the biggest workplaces include the Odessa R-VII Schools, Milbank Manufacturing in Concordia and Lafayette Regional Health Center. Unemployment across the county has eased a little compared with a year earlier, though the number of jobs there dipped slightly last year.
Things to do. Most outings from Bates City mean a longer drive. Arrowhead Stadium is the best known destination, a stadium a longer drive away, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum also a longer drive away. For time outdoors, Lake Jacomo is a lake a longer drive away, and the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is a museum another longer drive away.
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- 14%of adults have a degree
- 2%below the poverty line
- 9%work from home
What people in Lafayette County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lafayette County had 8,754 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 12 inches of snow and 43 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Elm weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lafayette County
- Odessa R-vii SchoolsSchool district280FTE
- Milbank Manufacturing - ConcordiaBoxes, light gauge metal, manufacturing260
- Tyson DeliMeat processed from carcasses241
- Advanced IndustriesContainers, light gauge metal, manufacturing179
- Lafayette Regional Health CenterCritical access hospital169FTE
- John Knox Village East & Meyer Care CenterNursing homes145
- Lexington R-V SchoolsSchool district143FTE
- Lafayette Co. C-1 SchoolsSchool district121FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,846 people in all across the county; Bates City has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bates City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Lafayette County and the Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
Bates City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bates City$373,504
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bates City8
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Bates City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bates City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.