Bushton, Kansas.
Typical home $98,365 (+11.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$206 (+66%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,910 +11%
- $88,456$98,365 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $12,065 +14%
- $86,300$98,365 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.
- Bushton$516
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Bushton, KS rose 11.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bushton, Rice County, Kansas
Bushton is a city of 203 people in Rice County. 95% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 5% are rented. Unemployment in Rice County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Rice 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bushton is a very small Kansas city, home to far fewer people than most American towns, and nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Homes here cost far less than the typical American home, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in most places. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn hot, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, farming and shops also providing jobs. Across Rice County, the largest workplaces include Sterling College, Lyons Schools and the Hospital District of Rice County. Unemployment across the county is unchanged from a year earlier, and the county has added a few more jobs over the past year.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Kanopolis State Park and Kanopolis Lake are a longer drive away, offering protected parkland and a reservoir for boating and fishing. Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, also a longer drive, is a protected area known for its birdlife. Fort Harker, another longer drive, is a historic fort for anyone interested in the region's past.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
What people in Rice County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rice County had 3,829 jobs in 2025, 1.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 67°. About 16 inches of snow and 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ellsworth weather station, 18 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rice County
- Sterling CollegeUniversity or college190
- Lyons SchoolsSchool district161FTE
- Jacam Chemical CompanyAdministrative management services130
- Hospital Dist NO 1 of Rice CountyCritical access hospital110FTE
- KMW423820 farm and garden machinery and equipment merchant wholesalers110
- Jacam ManufacturingChemicals merchant wholesalers101
- Cal-Maine Foods Inc. ConventionalChicken egg production79
- Sterling SchoolsSchool district71FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,095 people in all across the county; Bushton has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- HailVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bushton’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Rice County.
Bushton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bushton$98,365
- Kansas$246,055
- 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.
Zip codes with a Bushton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bushton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.