Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

A home search in the southern Overland Park Kansas area sometimes crosses over into the city limits of in southern Leawood Kansas. A northern Overland Park home search can quickly lead to considering homes in northern Leawood, Prairie Village or Eastern Shawnee Kansas. It’s really difficult at times to know when you just left one city and entered another. Some homebuyers may care about this but others place no importance on whether they just left the Lenexa city limits and entered Shawnee. In another example, some home buyers might assume that being west of Pflumm and south of I-435 means you’re in Olathe. But it could mean you’re in Overland Park at certain points too. Again, that may matter to some buyers but not to others.

So, while some buyers are best served by searching by School Districts or by city, others may want to consider a Zip Code search instead. Many Zip Code searches will often allow a buyer to cross city boundaries while keeping them in close proximity to their work or whatever it is that’s driving their home search. A zip code search can also help a buyer focus on demographics, if that’s important.  If you wish to be in the Western Olathe area, a search of the 66061 zip code would do the trick. If you only want to view homes for sale in Western Lenexa, a 66220 zip code search would be an excellent starting point. Homes in the old Stilwell Kansas area (what’s now southeast Overland Park)? Try the 66085 zip code. You really can zone in on an area by finding one great listing that you like, noting that zip code, and then coming back to this page and clicking on the that zip code to view all the other area homes for sale…

If searching by zip code doesn’t do the trick, we can schedule a time to sit down at my office to log into MLS and draw lines on the MLS map to select the precise parameters you want… it doesn’t have to be a simple boxed area either. We can zig and zag the lines on an MLS map to meet your precise area parameters. So don’t hesitate to contact me to schedule an appointment to do so.

If you are getting MORE than 100 results when clicking any of the above zip codes, be aware that you’re not seeing all of the available homes. In fact, you’ll be seeing just the 100 most expensive homes in that zip code.  You can tell if there are more than 100 results by looking for the black print right above the button that says “Email Me When New Listings Match This Search”. If it indicates there’s more than 100, here’s a trick you can use: once you’ve clicked on one of the above zip codes if it indicates there’s between 100 and 200 properties for sale in the zip code, click “ASCENDING BY PRICE” and click the SORT button. This allows you view the 100 LEAST expensive homes in the zip code – thus letting you see 200 total listings at most.

Now if there are more than 200 available homes in a zip code, you’ll have to go to work to narrow the parameters to less than 200 homes. Change the price or some other parameters because MLS rules only allow consumers to do a search that nets 100 maximum results (200 with the trick I just showed you). To search a zip code AND change a search parameters is easy, just go HERE and enter your preferred zip code and enter a price range parameter, etc. Enjoy searching!

Posted by Jason A. Brown