Gardner, Kansas.
Typical home $350,639 (+2.3% in a year), asking rent $1,602 (+4.5%). Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$972 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,881 +2%
- $342,758$350,639 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $63,308 +22%
- $287,331$350,639 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.
- Gardner$1,840
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Gardner, KS rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Gardner, KS rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Gardner runs $946/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,097 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,548 a month against $1,602 rent: a $1,840 mortgage payment, plus $332 property tax and $375 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Gardner
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,548
- Renting$1,602
- Mortgage only$1,840
Property tax · $332/mo 1.14% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Johnson County, KS
Insurance & upkeep · $375/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Gardner, Johnson County, Kansas
Gardner is a city of 23,287 people in Johnson County. Half its households earn more than $96,818 a year and half less, against $109,208 across Johnson County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Gardner was 3.9% in August 2026, and Johnson County had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Gardner is a city in Johnson County with a young population compared with much of the country. Household incomes run below the county's, though still comfortable by national standards, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold and summers are warm, with rain and melted snow spread across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in transport, warehouses and utilities. Among the largest workplaces in Gardner are Gardner Edgerton Schools, Walmart and Meadowbrook Rehabilitation Hospital. Commutes are moderate, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. The nearest outing is Mahaffie House, a park a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Arrowhead Stadium, where football is played, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, one of the region's best-known museums. The Kansas River is also a longer drive away.
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- 8,288households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Johnson County had 372,167 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 68°. About 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Olathe Johnson County Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gardner
- Gardner Edgerton SchoolsSchool district828FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters348
- Kansas City KS RpdcMail and parcel delivery228
- First Student145
- Recover CareSkilled nursing facilities131
- Meadowbrook Rehabilitation HospitalRehabilitation hospital86FTE
- BCI MechanicalHvac contractors71
- Pro Design ContractorsConstruction management, water and sewer line64
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,103 people in all. 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gardner’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Johnson County and the Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
Gardner home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gardner$350,639
- Kansas$246,055
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Gardner listings, and the typical home goes pending in 12 days — the market is cooling.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Gardner36.94%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Gardner12
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gardner58
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gardner25
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Gardner$344,119
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Gardner100.47%
Zip codes with a Gardner address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gardner — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.