Best Places to Buy Rental Property in Kansas (2026)

Start with Topeka. It is the lowest entry price on this list, $185,000 at the median, and its $1,195 median asking rent turns that into 7.8 percent gross, the best return the state's measurable cities offer. Kansas City is close behind at 7.4 percent. The rental mix matters. In Overland Park the house median asking rent is $2,600 against $2,150 for all listings. That gap belongs in a house-to-house comparison, house rent against house sale prices, not on top of the mixed-sale ratio in the table. Volume and yield part ways: Overland Park closes about 242 homes a month, more than any other city here, and ranks ninth on yield at 5.2 percent. One more city clears the closings bar but not the rental one and appears in a second table with entry price only.

The ranking

Gross yield here is an asking rental yield screen: twelve times the median asking rent over the median closed price, before taxes, insurance, vacancy, management or repairs. Sales use municipal boundaries. Rental listings use the associated city name and may cover a wider postal area. The ratio therefore compares related, but not perfectly matched, market samples, and a home bought at the median price does not necessarily earn the median rent. Confirmed-close medians appear where at least 30 confirmed lease closes were recorded in the window.

City by city

1. Topeka, 7.8 percent gross

Topeka moves fast, 6 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 7.8 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. The numbers: $185,000 median closed price across 838 closings, $1,195 median asking rent across 1,276 listings, 7.8 percent gross. Full detail is on the Topeka market page.

2. Kansas City, 7.4 percent gross

Homes in Kansas City closed at a median of $240,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,480, a gross yield of 7.4 percent. Houses there closed at about $160 per square foot. The Kansas City market page carries the monthly figures.

3. Spring Hill, 7.2 percent gross

Homes in Spring Hill closed at a median of $399,990 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,395, a gross yield of 7.2 percent. Full detail is on the Spring Hill market page.

4. Gardner, 6.9 percent gross

Homes in Gardner closed at a median of $359,945 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,060, a gross yield of 6.9 percent. Full detail is on the Gardner market page.

5. Leavenworth, 6.3 percent gross

The numbers: $245,000 median closed price across 210 closings, $1,287 median asking rent across 347 listings, 6.3 percent gross. Houses there closed at about $146 per square foot. See the Leavenworth page for the property mix and the price band.

6. Prairie Village, 6.3 percent gross

Prairie Village moves fast, 3 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 6.3 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. At $495,000 to buy and $2,595 a month to rent, Prairie Village yields 6.3 percent gross on 239 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Prairie Village market page.

7. Olathe, 5.8 percent gross

Olathe moves fast, 8 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 5.8 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. The numbers: $464,950 median closed price across 1,151 closings, $2,245 median asking rent across 759 listings, 5.8 percent gross. Full detail is on the Olathe market page.

8. Lawrence, 5.2 percent gross

Lawrence is cheaper than its yield rank suggests: fourth on price, eighth on yield, because a $320,000 home there rents for only $1,400. At $320,000 to buy and $1,400 a month to rent, Lawrence yields 5.2 percent gross on 290 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Lawrence market page.

9. Overland Park, 5.2 percent gross

Overland Park moves fast, 5 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 5.2 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. Homes in Overland Park closed at a median of $495,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,150, a gross yield of 5.2 percent. The Overland Park market page carries the monthly figures.

10. Lenexa, 5.2 percent gross

The numbers: $525,000 median closed price across 446 closings, $2,268 median asking rent across 202 listings, 5.2 percent gross. See the Lenexa page for the property mix and the price band.

11. Shawnee, 4.5 percent gross

A low entry price does not carry Shawnee far: it is seventh cheapest on this list and eleventh on yield, with rent of $1,580 against a $425,000 median price. At $425,000 to buy and $1,580 a month to rent, Shawnee yields 4.5 percent gross on 468 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $197 per square foot. See the Shawnee page for the property mix and the price band.

12. Leawood, 2.7 percent gross

Leawood's rental sample is 75 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $1,716 asking median understates what a house rents for there. At $775,000 to buy and $1,716 a month to rent, Leawood yields 2.7 percent gross on 264 tracked closings. The Leawood market page carries the monthly figures.

Priced, but too few rentals to rank

Resideline can price these cities but cannot yet rank them on rent: each has 100 or more closings and fewer than 50 rental listings in the window.

How this ranking is built

• •Cities: every Kansas city where Resideline tracked at least 100 closings inside the municipal boundary in its reporting window (six or twelve months) and at least 50 rental listings under the city's name since September 10, 2025: 12 cities qualify.
• •Prices: the median price homes closed at inside the city limits, from Resideline's tracked closings; the state comparison uses the statewide median of $359,900 across 9,482 closings.
• •Rents: the median advertised rent on rental listings Resideline tracked in the last twelve months, all property types, measured on the listings that carry the city's name (a postal footprint, wider than the city line in some places).
• •Confirmed-close medians: Observed rent blends two kinds of record: confirmed lease closes extracted from property records, and the final asking rent on listings that left Resideline tracking without a recorded close. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed closes in the window, their median is printed beside the asking figure; in the last twelve months about a quarter of Resideline's close episodes are confirmed closes. The asking and confirmed-close samples are separate, not paired, so a difference between their medians is not a measured gap on the same listings.
• •What is missing: taxes, insurance, vacancy, management and repairs, which turn a gross yield into a net one, and the unit mix, which differs between what sells and what rents.

Sources and related pages

• •Resideline tracked closings inside city limits (window per city, updated September 10, 2026) and rental listings since September 10, 2025; confirmed lease closes extracted from property records.
• •More Kansas rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in Kansas ranks the same kind of list with each city's price per square foot for houses, realized appreciation and days to contract beside the median, and Cap Rate by City ranks the Kansas cities Resideline tracks by gross rental yield. The Kansas housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest Kansas markets by closings.
• •Asking rent vs observed rent compares live asking rents with final asking rents under that study's own definition; it says nothing about confirmed lease closes.

Prepared with Resideline's research pipeline and reviewed by Jeffrey Batista, Resideline's founder.