Kirkwood, Missouri.
Typical home $466,230 (+4.0% in a year), asking rent $1,893 (+2.1%). St. Louis, MO-IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,256 (+105%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,058 +4%
- $448,172$466,230 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $95,792 +26%
- $370,438$466,230 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.
- Kirkwood$2,447
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Kirkwood, MO rose 4.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Kirkwood, MO rose 2.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Kirkwood runs $1,521/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,538 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,414 a month against $1,893 rent: a $2,447 mortgage payment, plus $468 property tax and $499 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Kirkwood
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$3,414
- Renting$1,893
- Mortgage only$2,447
Property tax · $468/mo 1.20% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Saint Louis County, MO
Insurance & upkeep · $499/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 Kirkwood, St. Louis County, Missouri
Kirkwood is a city of 29,461 people in St. Louis County. Half its households earn more than $121,270 a year and half less, against $82,936 across St. Louis County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Kirkwood was 3.5% in August 2026, and St. Louis County had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Kirkwood is a city in St. Louis County with a settled, established feel. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run well above the county's, with fewer people living in poverty than is typical. Residents tend to be middle-aged, and a large majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn hot by July, with a good deal of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, banks, insurance and property, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Kirkwood R-vii Schools is the largest workplace in town, with Walmart and Target among the other big employers. Unemployment is a little lower than a year ago, though across St. Louis County there are somewhat fewer jobs than in the year before. A fair number of people work from home, and the usual commute is short.
Things to do. Within a short drive are the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Saint Louis Zoo, which suit an easy afternoon out. World Wide Technology Soccer Park, a stadium, sits in or beside town. For a longer outing, the Gateway Arch National Park on the riverfront is a longer drive away.
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- 11,992households
- 68%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 23%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. St. Louis County had 589,803 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 72°. About 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the St. Louis Sci Ctr weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kirkwood
- Kirkwood R-vii SchoolsSchool district893FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters316
- TargetDiscount department stores244
- Presbyterian Manors of Mid AmericaAssisted-living facilities with on-site nursing facilities221
- AT&TWired telecommunications carriers188
- Sam's ClubWarehouse clubs and supercenters168
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter145
- First Student116
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,914 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Heat wavesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Earthquakesrelatively high in parts of KirkwoodRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of KirkwoodRelatively 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 Kirkwood’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 St. Louis County and the St. Louis, MO-IL metro.
Kirkwood home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kirkwood$466,230
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Kirkwood listings, and the typical home goes pending in 6 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Kirkwood28.62%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Kirkwood6
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Kirkwood84
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Kirkwood39
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Kirkwood$408,321
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Kirkwood102.90%
Zip codes with a Kirkwood address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kirkwood — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.