Rural Missouri towns hit by 'crazy' spikes in housing prices, hurting longtime residents [View all]
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked high housing prices all across the country in places long insulated from them. Remote, rural towns where real estate prices remained low for decades are now seeing unprecedented price spikes, which are compounding problems for the rural poor.
For years the run-up in housing prices skipped vast stretches of so-called flyover country. Then came a run-up in home prices in places like Boise, Idaho, where they shot up nearly 50%. Now the pandemic has spread that price pressure all the way to places like Osceola, Missouri, a town of about 900 an hour outside the outskirts of Kansas City.
Osceola is smaller than it was a century ago, and home prices remained in the basement for decades. That, however, was before the pandemic hit. Now prices are up sharply, with some homes selling for more than 30% above what they were valued at as recently as this spring. And much of the buying power and interest in the Osceola real estate market is coming from far away.
On a recent morning, Stewart Kiefer Realtors on the square in Osceola was crowded with Californians. Two couples and a widower, all related and all looking to make a move from the high desert between Palm Springs and Los Angeles to rural Missouri.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/economy-business/2021-12-02/rural-missouri-towns-hit-by-crazy-spikes-in-housing-prices-hurting-longtime-residents?
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