Melvern, Kansas.
Typical home $212,867 (+7.6% in a year). Topeka, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$696 (+165%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,082 +8%
- $197,785$212,867 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,491 +43%
- $148,376$212,867 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.
- Melvern$1,117
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Melvern, KS rose 7.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Melvern, Osage County, Kansas
Melvern is a city of 356 people in Osage County. Half its households earn more than $55,893 a year and half less, against $74,467 across Osage County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Osage County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Osage County work in schools and health care, then transport and warehouses.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Melvern is a very small city in Osage County, Kansas, where neighbors are likely to know one another by name. Incomes in town run below the county's, and typical home values sit at a moderate level. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and freezing lows common, and summers turn hot by July. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with transport, warehouses and utilities, shops and manufacturing also common. Across Osage County, the largest workplaces include Santa Fe Trail Schools, Osage City Schools and Americare Senior Living. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a long one, so many workers travel some distance to their jobs. Job numbers across the county slipped a little last year, and unemployment there has edged up from a year earlier.
Things to do. Melvern Lake, a reservoir a short drive away, is the nearest place for time on the water. Eisenhower State Park, a protected area also a short drive away, is close by for walks and a day outdoors. Pomona Lake, another reservoir, lies a longer drive away.
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- 130households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 41 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Osage County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Osage County had 2,913 jobs in 2025, 1.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 69°. About 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Melvern Lake weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Osage County
- Santa Fe Trail SchoolsSchool district161FTE
- Osage City SchoolsSchool district87FTE
- Lyndon SchoolsSchool district78FTE
- Burlingame Public SchoolSchool district44FTE
- Americare Senior LivingHealthcare43
- Marais Des Cygnes Valley SchoolsSchool district32FTE
- ORBIS Osage CityAwnings, rigid plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 70 people in all across the county; Melvern has one of its own. 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- LightningVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Melvern’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 Osage County and the Topeka, KS metro.
Melvern home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Melvern$212,867
- 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 Melvern address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Melvern — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.