Topeka, Kansas.
Typical home $195,299 (-0.4% in a year), asking rent $1,249 (+4.3%). Topeka, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$570 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $692 -0%
- $195,992$195,299 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $46,455 +31%
- $148,844$195,299 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.
- Topeka$1,025
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Topeka, KS fell 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Topeka, KS rose 4.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Topeka runs $228/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $335 in May 2024.
That is $1,478 a month against $1,249 rent: a $1,025 mortgage payment, plus $243 property tax and $209 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Topeka
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$1,478
- Renting$1,249
- Mortgage only$1,025
Property tax · $243/mo 1.50% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Shawnee County, KS
Insurance & upkeep · $209/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 Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas
Topeka is a city of 126,587 people in Shawnee County. Half its households earn more than $56,956 a year and half less, against $67,104 across Shawnee County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Topeka was 4.7% in August 2026, and Shawnee County had 3.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Topeka is the capital of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County, a city where more people rent their homes than across the county as a whole. Household incomes run below the county's, and a smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than many might expect of a state capital. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the hottest. Rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by government, manufacturing and shops. Among the largest workplaces in Topeka are Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center, Topeka Public Schools and the Veterans Health Administration. The job market has grown a little over the past year, and most people have a short drive to work, with some working from home.
Things to do. Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, a protected area in or beside town, marks the landmark school desegregation case. The Topeka Zoo is also in or beside town, and the Reinisch Rose Garden and Doran Rock Garden offers a botanical garden to stroll through. A short drive away, Lake Shawnee is a reservoir for time on the water, and the Kansas Museum of History is close by as well.
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- 54,837households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Shawnee County had 102,421 jobs in 2025, 3.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 68°. About 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Topeka - Weather Service weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Topeka
- Stormont-vail Regional Health CenterGeneral hospital5,235FTE
- Topeka Public SchoolsSchool district2,075FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs1,570
- TargetDiscount department stores1,037
- St.francis Health CenterGeneral hospital963FTE
- Washburn UniversityUniversity or college946
- Seaman SchoolsSchool district568FTE
- Midland Care ConnectionHome care of elderly, medical513
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 125 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 19,168 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of TopekaRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Topeka’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Shawnee County and the Topeka, KS metro.
Topeka home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Topeka$195,299
- Kansas$246,055
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Topeka listings, and the typical home goes pending in 11 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.
- Topeka25.70%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Topeka11
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Topeka463
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Topeka200
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Topeka$200,690
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Topeka99.42%
Zip codes with a Topeka address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Topeka — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Topeka
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66614 | Topeka | 32,538 | $1,651 | $239,990 |
| 66604 | Topeka | 23,006 | $1,158 | $161,510 |
| 66605 | Topeka | 20,891 | $999 | $159,881 |
| 66618 | Topeka | 10,179 | $1,530 | $304,648 |
| 66607 | Topeka | 9,965 | $1,175 | $70,488 |
| 66610 | Topeka | 9,849 | — | $387,458 |
| 66606 | Topeka | 9,842 | $1,060 | $137,107 |
| 66611 | Topeka | 9,828 | $1,151 | $161,541 |
| 66617 | Topeka | 8,903 | $1,238 | $274,522 |
| 66609 | Topeka | 7,572 | $2,031 | $243,880 |
| 66616 | Topeka | 6,212 | — | $103,398 |
| 66608 | Topeka | 4,216 | $1,025 | $107,625 |
| 66619 | Topeka | 3,217 | — | $132,789 |
| 66615 | Topeka | 2,943 | $1,409 | $316,714 |
| 66603 | Topeka | 1,830 | — | $59,493 |
| 66612 | Topeka | 1,754 | $760 | $65,062 |