Kearney, Missouri.
Typical home $400,894 (+2.8% in a year), asking rent $2,198 . Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,120 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,731 +3%
- $390,163$400,894 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $69,611 +21%
- $331,283$400,894 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.
- Kearney$2,104
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Kearney, MO rose 2.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Kearney, Clay County, Missouri
Kearney is a city of 10,404 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $103,622 a year and half less, against $88,468 across Clay County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 74% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 26% are rented. Unemployment in Clay County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Kearney is a small city in Clay County, Missouri, where most homes are lived in by their owners and households earn more than across the county as a whole. Poverty is low, and the population is somewhat younger than in many small towns. Winters are cold, with snow most years, and summers turn quite warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and shops also employing a good number. Core Insulation, which makes pipe, duct and boiler insulation, and Ply Gem Siding, a siding and plastics manufacturer, are among the largest workplaces in town. Commutes are fairly short, and some people work from home.
Things to do. Liberty Jail, a museum, is a short drive away, and Clear Creek is a short drive away too. Carroll Creek runs in or beside town. The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is a longer drive away, as is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
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- 4,316households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Clay County had 110,830 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 19 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Kearney 3E weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kearney
- Core InsulationPipe, duct and boiler insulation200
- Ply Gem SidingSiding, plastics, manufacturing153
- Summit School ServicesSchool and employee bus transportation61
- KearneyMail and parcel delivery24
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 438 people in all. 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 wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of KearneyRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kearney’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 Clay County and the Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
Kearney home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kearney$400,894
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Kearney listings, and the typical home goes pending in 8 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Kearney30.81%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Kearney8
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Kearney54
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Kearney22
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Kearney$456,817
- United States$371,553
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Kearney99.64%
Zip codes with a Kearney address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kearney — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.