Does colder weather lead to higher home prices?
It turns out that on top of making mid-Missourians reach for their winter jackets, the cold weather can also impact the housing market.
“Something that is also going to affect real estate sales results in February and March is going to be cold weather that we had for a while," said Brian Toohey, CEO of Columbia Board of Realtors. "That always winds up affecting winter months in home sales."
Toohey added the cold is only one of many factors affecting the home market in Columbia. The National Association of Realtors predicted during a convention in November that 2026 will be the “year of recovery” for the housing market, but just two months later, in January, existing home sales fell 8.4%.
Toohey announced in a recent press release that “single-family home sales dropped over 14%,” which he said is a number that hasn’t been seen for a decade.
“We did see a decline here in year-over-year sales and also month-over-month sales and that looks like a pretty big number,” Toohey told KBIA. “At the same time, prices also increased year-over-year by 7% in Boone County, and that’s a pretty big jump in prices.”
And this mimics the national trend. In the last quarter, the average home sale price reached an all-time high of $534,000.
Despite the decrease in sales, the median price rose to $339,900, which is credited to houses more than $400,000 selling well, while home sales priced below $400,000 decreased by 26%. This is a signal that homes in the upper end of the market are selling the best, locally.
“The most active market segment over the past few years, homes priced between $250,000 to $349,000 saw a 53% drop in sales,” Toohey wrote in last week's press release.
Price increases might be a good thing for sellers and price appreciation, which is the increase in value of an item over time. But it can also dissuade potential buyers. Toohey said he believes this might be one reason people are buying outside of Columbia.
“Probably 32% of our sales now occur outside of Boone County, and that's more than double than ten years ago,” Toohey said.
Prospective buyers outside of the upper end of the market may benefit from living farther away from Columbia’s metro area.
Michelle Adams owns Adams Realty in Centralia. She said recently she’s seen more people moving to towns neighboring Columbia — due, in part, to lower home prices.
“A lot of people are moving outside of Columbia to get those perks of raising your family in a small community,” Adams said.
The price of the houses being bought can dramatically skew the market. Audrain County saw an increase from a $170,000 median sale price to $425,000 median sale price in January, which only accounts for four closed sales in the county. Centralia also has an upper housing market, but she said one of the perks of Centralia is the affordability for families living in middle income brackets.
“We are not one of those communities that is looking for the big lavish housing market. We are more for your [middle-income] family,” she said. “The majority of our population and our homebuyers, we are looking for the middle economy housing market.”
According to the Columbia Board of Realtors, the overall median sales price decreased in mid-Missouri counties between December and January. Boone County was one of the counties that saw the increase.
While the move to smaller towns is not a new phenomena, it is a growing trend.
“It’s something that has always been as far as people moving out of the bigger cities, but I think the attraction has definitely increased just as times are changing,” Adams said.
Toohey said the local spring market is looking up, as overall market conditions have improved for buyers since last year. One of the largest impacts could be in inventory, which has been down for several years. But supply has risen 20% from last year and 67% since December.
“If we see more inventory come on the market this spring, and rates stay where they are, which is almost a full percentage point lower than they were this time last year, we can start to see a pretty decent spring and early summer housing market locally,” he said.
William Rogers is a former associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis. Rogers said while there seem to be major shifts now, they are not necessarily an indication of the future market.
“As far as trends in the area, you're probably not gonna see big swings at all in Missouri unless something catastrophic happens to the economy,” Rogers said.
Rogers notes another factor to consider is that houses will be taken off the market if they aren’t performing well.
“The statistics will show a decline in sales and new listings and close sales, but possibly not an impact on house prices because the homes that do sell are self-selected,” he said.
Pending listings in January were slightly better than last year, which he speculates might have been even higher last month if it “weren’t for the extreme cold for a two-and-a-half-week period.”
“At first glance, the January stats seem alarming, but if you dig a little deeper, the market seems to be setting up for a busy spring with lower mortgage rates and increased inventory,” Toohey wrote in the press release.
