In September 2026, the Boone County single-family median sale price rose 12% from a year earlier, to $370,000. Inside Columbia city limits, the median rose 1.8%, to $370,900. Both figures come from the same Mid-Missouri Board of REALTORS data for the same month, and they end up within $900 of each other. A year ago, the county median was well below the city's. This September it caught up, and part of the reason has little to do with what an ordinary Columbia house is worth.
The September numbers do not describe a market that rose 12% at every price. Homes in the middle price range sell quickly and stay scarce. Homes at the top sit for months. New construction, the usual release valve, is being held back on purpose.
Five closings did a lot of the work
Comobuz reported that five Boone County homes sold for more than $1 million in September 2026. Brian Toohey, CEO of the Mid-Missouri Board of REALTORS, told the outlet that leaving out those five sales would cut the countywide median's year-over-year gain from 12% to 7%.
That is a big swing for five transactions, and it happened because the month was thin. Countywide closings fell 12% to 145. Inside Columbia, closings fell 18% to 89. When the total count drops, a handful of large sales carries more weight in the midpoint. A median tells you which homes changed hands that month. It does not tell you that any particular house gained 12% in value.
The averages show the same split. The countywide average sale price rose 14% to $447,614 in September 2026, while Columbia's average rose 2.4% to $432,060. Over a longer window the picture settles down. The county median for January through September 2026 was $349,700, up 4% from the same period in 2025. For anyone pricing a purchase or a sale, that nine-month figure is closer to the real pace of change than a single month's 12%.
The same month looks very different by price range
The five high-end sales also explain a sharp drop in luxury supply. In the August 2026 MMBOR chart package published by ABC17, Boone County homes listed at $1 million and up had 39 months of supply. By September, that figure had fallen to 8.2 months. When a small segment sells a few homes in one month, its months-of-supply number drops sharply. The closings that lifted the county median are the same ones that pulled the luxury supply figure down.
The August table shows how uneven Boone County's market is from one price band to the next:
| List price range, Boone County | Months of supply, Aug. 2026 | Avg. days on market, Aug. 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| $250,000–$299,999 | 2.23 | 31 |
| $300,000–$349,999 | 2.38 | 19 |
| $350,000–$399,999 | 2.13 | 46 |
| $400,000–$449,999 | 3.00 | 39 |
| $500,000–$649,999 | 3.92 | 48 |
| $650,000–$799,999 | 6.20 | 56 |
| $800,000–$999,999 | 32.00 | 112 |
| $1,000,000+ | 39.00 | 67 |
By September, Toohey reported, most price ranges had at least two months of supply. The $300,000 to $399,999 range was the exception and stayed below that level. That band sits right around both medians. A buyer shopping near $370,000 faces a much tighter market than the countywide total of 3.6 months of supply suggests. A seller listing above $800,000 faces the opposite.
The supply that is being held back
Normally, when sales slow, homes pile up. Boone County's active listings fell 2% to 528 in September 2026, and new listings fell 7%. Toohey attributed part of the drop in new listings to homebuilders holding existing inventory instead of bringing more homes to market.
Builders explained their thinking to the Missouri Independent in July. Jeff Hemme, owner of Columbia-based Hemme Homes and Remodeling, told the outlet that when mortgage rates briefly dipped below 6% earlier in 2026, his company sold 15 homes in four weeks. Business slowed once rates climbed again. "If we don't think buyers are out there, we're not going to build," Hemme said. He told the outlet the company now builds about 25 homes a year in mid-Missouri, down from 50 to 60 a few years ago. Parker Girard, co-owner of Girard Homes, told the same outlet that Columbia has strong underlying demand, but high costs and interest rates make new homes hard to sell at prices most buyers can afford.
In practice, this means new construction in Columbia arrives in bursts. Builders release homes when rate conditions bring buyers in, and they slow down when those conditions fade. New construction is already a small share of the market. In August 2026, MMBOR data counted 18 new-construction single-family sales against 155 existing-home sales in Boone County. From January through August, the count was 187 new against 1,254 existing. With roughly one sale in eight coming from a builder, a cautious builder season takes away the supply that would otherwise relieve the tight middle of the market.
Where permits are still being pulled
Builders are slowing down without stopping, and the permit records show where they are working. Columbia Business Times counted 97 home-building permits across Columbia and Boone County in August and September 2026. Those included 10 townhomes in Auburn Hills/Derby Ridge by J. Jones Homes and 27 new homes at 5301 E. St. Charles Road by JMC Construction. Earlier in 2026, the same monthly report named these projects:
- Tuscany Ridge, by Lombardo Custom Homes, and Legacy Farms, by Dynamic Builders, in January
- The Cottages at Evergreen, by Anderson Homes, and Bristol Ridge, by Girard Custom Homes, in April
- Amberton Place, by Hemme Construction, and Old Hawthorne North, by Anderson Homes, in June
A permit records a builder's intent at a point in time. It does not guarantee a finished home on a given date. Even so, these subdivisions are where new supply is most likely to show up when builders decide buyers are back.
What the two speeds mean at different budgets
Taken together, the September numbers point to different strategies at different prices. Near the middle of Columbia's market, buyers are competing for a thin supply that a modest new-home pipeline is not keeping up with. Above $650,000, months of supply climb quickly, and in August homes above $800,000 averaged well over two months on the market before going under contract. A buyer there usually has more time and more choices.
Overall pace is still slow by recent standards and normal by older ones. Homes averaged 46 cumulative days on market in September 2026. Toohey noted that this is slower than most of the past six years but well below the 2010–2019 September average of 80 days. Pending sales rose 9% in September after falling 11% in July and 12% in August. Toohey suggested the rebound reflected pent-up demand and buyers becoming more accepting of rates above 7%.
Condos are moving more slowly than houses. Boone County condo sales fell 34% in the third quarter of 2026. The median condo price rose 1% to $189,000, and average time on market went from 19 days to 26.
Questions buyers are asking
Did Columbia home values really rise 12% in a year? Not by the city's own September 2026 numbers. Inside city limits the median rose 1.8%, and the countywide median for January through September rose 4%. The 12% figure is a single month, boosted by five sales above $1 million.
Will more listings show up soon? In September 2026, Toohey said owners with much lower mortgage rates may hold off on selling if borrowing costs stay high into 2027. In his view, that could keep inventory low and put pressure on prices even while sales stay slow. On the new-construction side, the builders quoted above tie their pace to how many buyers they see.
Is the tight range the same everywhere in Boone County? The price-band figures cover Boone County as a whole. Columbia city data gets reported separately for totals and medians, so a buyer focused on a specific part of town should look at recent closings there as well as county-level supply.
In this market, the headline median and the price of a particular home can be far apart, and closing that gap takes current, property-specific comps. If you're weighing a resale in Columbia's tight middle range against a new build in Old Hawthorne North or Bristol Ridge, or deciding how to price a home above $650,000, Ryan Patton and the Patton Properties team can walk you through the numbers behind your specific decision. Contact us to start that conversation.
