Ness City, Kansas.
Typical home $121,191 (+10.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$379 (+148%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,007 +10%
- $110,185$121,191 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,542 +45%
- $83,649$121,191 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.
- Ness City$636
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Ness City, KS rose 10.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ness City, Ness County, Kansas
Ness City is a city of 1,329 people in Ness County. Half its households earn more than $64,583 a year and half less, against $68,616 across Ness County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 82% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 18% are rented. Unemployment in Ness County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ness City is a small farming town in western Kansas and the seat of Ness County. Most homes here are lived in by their owners, and typical home values are modest. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and a somewhat larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical for the country.
Work. Many residents work in farming, in schools and hospitals, or in professional and business services, with some jobs in restaurants and hotels. Across Ness County, the largest workplaces include the Ness County Hospital District, Ness City Schools and the farm equipment wholesaler BTI. Unemployment in the county has been a little lower than a year earlier, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Cedar Bluff State Park, a protected area, and Cedar Bluff Reservoir are both a longer drive away. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers get hot, so the shoulder seasons are comfortable for being outside.
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- 504households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ness County had 1,076 jobs in 2025, 0.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 65°. About 15 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ness City weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ness County
- Ness County Hospital DistrictCritical access hospital73FTE
- Grisell Memorial Hospital DistCritical access hospital52FTE
- Ness City SchoolsSchool district47FTE
- Western Plains SchoolsSchool district31FTE
- BTIPlanting machinery and equipment, farm-type, merchant wholesalers30
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 150 people in all across the county; Ness City has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ness City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Ness County.
Ness City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ness City$121,191
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ness City9
Zip codes with a Ness City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ness City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.