Liberty, Missouri.
Typical home $327,391 (+2.4% in a year), asking rent $1,574 (+2.9%). Kansas City, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$936 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,685 +2%
- $319,706$327,391 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $63,420 +24%
- $263,971$327,391 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.
- Liberty$1,718
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Liberty, MO rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Liberty, MO rose 2.9% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Liberty runs $786/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $902 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,360 a month against $1,574 rent: a $1,718 mortgage payment, plus $291 property tax and $350 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Liberty
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$2,360
- Renting$1,574
- Mortgage only$1,718
Property tax · $291/mo 1.07% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Clay County, MO
Insurance & upkeep · $350/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 Liberty, Clay County, Missouri
Liberty is a city of 30,167 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $88,542 a year and half less, against $88,468 across Clay County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Liberty was 3.5% in August 2026, and Clay County had 0.9% fewer 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. Liberty is a city in Clay County, Missouri, with households whose incomes sit about level with the county's and fewer people living below the poverty line than many places. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and a good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers are warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by retail, manufacturing and professional and business services. The largest workplaces in Liberty include Liberty 53 Schools, Liberty Hospital and Amazon. Jobs across Clay County slipped slightly last year, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. Liberty Jail, a museum, is in or beside town. A short drive away are the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and SubTropolis, a park. For a longer outing, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a longer drive away.
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- 11,568households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 16%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, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Liberty
- Liberty 53 SchoolsSchool district1,896FTE
- AmazonCouriers and express delivery services1,727
- Liberty HospitalGeneral hospital1,657FTE
- Hallmark Cards Liberty Distribution Center (& LDC 2)Warehousing and storage, general merchandise1,322
- FerrellgasPropane distribution477
- Life UnlimitedGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability455
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores392
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage352
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 30 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,585 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively 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 Liberty’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.
Liberty home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Liberty$327,391
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Liberty listings, and the typical home goes pending in 5 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.
- Liberty28.55%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Liberty5
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Liberty72
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Liberty37
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Liberty$339,621
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Liberty100.68%
Zip codes with a Liberty address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Liberty — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.