Shell Knob, Missouri.
Typical home $323,447 (+1.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,007 (+146%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,803 +2%
- $317,644$323,447 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $77,496 +32%
- $245,950$323,447 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.
- Shell Knob$1,698
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Shell Knob, MO rose 1.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Shell Knob, Barry County, Missouri
Shell Knob, in Barry County, had 1,254 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $54,925 a year and half less, against $58,346 across Barry County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Barry County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Barry County work in manufacturing, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Shell Knob is a small community in Barry County, Missouri, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Incomes run a little below the county's, and a somewhat larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical in many places. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs well below the freezing mark only on the coldest days, while July is hot, and there is a light covering of snow in an average year alongside a good deal of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. Across Barry County, some of the largest workplaces are Cassville Processing and Tyson Poultry, both in poultry processing, and Schreiber Foods Monett, which makes cheese. Jobs across the county slipped a little last year, and unemployment there is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. The Kings River runs in or beside town, and the James River and Roaring River, both rivers, are a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Table Rock Lake, a large reservoir, and to Silver Dollar City, an amusement park. Marvel Cave, a well-known tourist attraction, is also a longer drive from town.
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- 758households
- 15%below the poverty line
What people in Barry County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Barry County had 13,017 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 66°. About 7 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Galena weather station, 16 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Barry County
- Cassville ProcessingPoultry processing798
- Tyson PoultryPoultry processing595
- Miracle Recreation Equipment CoStairs, metal, manufacturing436
- Schreiber Foods MonettCheese manufacturing373
- Monett R-I SchoolsSchool district351FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters286
- Cox-monett HospitalCritical access hospital249FTE
- Cassville R-IV SchoolsSchool district244FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 37 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 16,412 people in all across the county; Shell Knob has one of its own. 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Shell Knob’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 Barry County.
Shell Knob home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Shell Knob$323,447
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Shell Knob listings — 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.
- Shell Knob19.21%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Shell Knob31
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Shell Knob5
Zip codes with a Shell Knob address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Shell Knob — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.