By Tara Williams
Of 2,286 listings across six Johnson County cities, 1,069 already have an accepted offer. City by city, here's how much of what you see online is truly available.
Here's a conversation I have at least once a week. A buyer sends me a link to a house they found online, we make a plan to see it Saturday, and I have to write back: "That one went under contract on Tuesday." The portal still shows it. It looks available. It isn't.
That gap between what's listed and what's actually buyable is bigger than most people realize, and it's different in every city. So when I pulled the September 13 MLS data for the per-foot map, I also sorted every listing by status. Of the 2,286 residential listings in six Johnson County cities that weekend, 1,069 were already Pending or Active-Under-Contract. That's 46.8 percent. Nearly half of what a buyer scrolls past this fall is already spoken for.
The Under-Contract Map
| City | Total listings | Still available | Under contract | Share spoken for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prairie Village | 97 | 42 | 55 | 56.7% |
| Shawnee | 240 | 122 | 118 | 49.2% |
| Overland Park | 739 | 378 | 361 | 48.8% |
| Leawood | 183 | 97 | 86 | 47.0% |
| Olathe | 801 | 434 | 367 | 45.8% |
| Lenexa | 226 | 144 | 82 | 36.3% |
| All six | 2,286 | 1,217 | 1,069 | 46.8% |
Basis: residential listings in the MLS with a status of Active, Pending or Active-Under-Contract on September 13, 2026, city limits only, Kansas side. "Still available" means status Active, which is the only status where you can still write an offer that isn't a backup.
What the Number Actually Measures
Before reading too much into the ranking, it helps to know what a high under-contract share means, because it's two things at once.
The first is demand. Homes go under contract when buyers write offers that sellers accept. A city where more than half the inventory is pending is a city where buyers are moving quickly on what comes up.
The second is time. A contract in Kansas typically takes 30 to 45 days to close, so every accepted offer sits in the "under contract" column for a month or more before it disappears. A city with a lot of recent activity and a small pool of new listings will show a high share even if the pace has cooled in the last week or two. That's why I treat this map as a picture of the last six weeks, not a live scoreboard.
Put those together and the read is this: a high share means the available pool is thin and buyers have been decisive. A low share means either fresh inventory is arriving faster than it's being absorbed, or buyers are hesitating. Both are useful to know before you walk into a showing.
Prairie Village: More Than Half Is Gone
Prairie Village tops the map at 56.7 percent, and I'm not surprised. It has the smallest pool of any of the six cities, just 97 listings, and only 42 of them can actually be shown and offered on today. That is a tiny selection for a city where most of my relocation clients ask to start. Combine it with the county's highest price per square foot, which I covered on Sunday, and the picture is consistent: Prairie Village is scarce, it's expensive, and the homes that are priced right don't wait around.
If you're shopping there, the practical implication is that your search is really 42 houses, not 97, and the ones you'll actually want to see are a fraction of that. This is the city where I most often recommend a backup offer on a house that just went pending, because contracts do fall through and the line behind them is short.
Shawnee and Overland Park: The Big Middle Is Moving
Shawnee at 49.2 percent and Overland Park at 48.8 percent are essentially tied, and together they tell the same story: the broad middle of the county is absorbing homes at nearly a one-to-one clip. Overland Park is the big one here. With 739 listings it's the second-largest market on the map, and 361 of those already have a contract on them. That's a lot of buyers who found what they wanted.
Shawnee is more interesting than it looks. Its median price is the lowest of the six, and its share is second-highest. Affordable inventory in a well-regarded school district goes fast, and the western new-construction pockets I wrote about in the Shawnee new-construction guide add a steady stream of builder contracts to the pending column. If you're a seller in Shawnee with a well-kept house in the $400K to $600K range, this is a favorable number.
Leawood and Olathe: Steady, Not Frantic
Leawood sits at 47.0 percent, which is right at the county average, and Olathe at 45.8 percent, just under it. Neither is a surprise.
Leawood's inventory is split between a small pool of newer luxury builds and a much larger pool of established homes, and the two move at different speeds. The established homes in the $700K to $1M range are the ones going under contract. The seven-figure new construction sits longer, which pulls the citywide share back toward the middle. If you're a buyer at the top of the Leawood market, you have more room to negotiate than the citywide number suggests.
Olathe is the largest market on the map at 801 listings, and its 45.8 percent share reflects a steady balance: builders keep adding new inventory on the west and south sides, and buyers keep absorbing it. It's the most predictable of the six cities, the same way it was the tightest per-foot market on Sunday. Fewer surprises in either direction.
Lenexa: The Outlier With the Most Room
Lenexa is the city that made me look twice. At 36.3 percent, it's more than ten points below the county average, and 144 of its 226 listings are still Active. That's a wider available selection relative to its size than anywhere else on the map.
Some of this is supply. Lenexa has more new-construction inventory arriving than a city its size usually does, and I walked through where it's coming from in the Lenexa new-construction guide. New listings hitting the market faster than they're absorbed will always push the share down. Some of it may be price expectation, too. Lenexa's median list price is within a few thousand dollars of Olathe's, but its per-foot rate is higher, and buyers who compare the two on a spreadsheet may be choosing Olathe.
For buyers, Lenexa is the city on this map where you're most likely to find a house you like, tour it without racing another offer, and negotiate on terms. For sellers, it's the city where pricing accuracy matters most right now, because the competition next door is still available.
How I Use This With Clients
For buyers: When you send me a listing, the first thing I check is the status, not the price. If it's already pending, we talk about whether a backup makes sense. If it's active in a city above 47 percent, we plan to see it within a day or two and I'll have a bidding strategy ready before we walk in. If it's active in Lenexa, we can afford to be a little more deliberate.
For sellers: Your city's share tells you how long a well-priced house should take. In Prairie Village or Shawnee, if you've been active for three weeks with no offer, the price is wrong. In Lenexa, three weeks without an offer might just be the market, and the answer might be patience rather than a reduction.
For everyone: Remember that the portals lag. A house that shows as available online may already be gone, and a house that's pending today may be back tomorrow. The MLS status is the truth; everything else is a delayed copy of it.
Want the Live Version?
This page is the six-city snapshot as of mid-September. What I do for clients is the version that matters: the available count in the exact neighborhood and price band you're shopping, updated the morning we talk, with the pending homes flagged so you don't waste a Saturday on something that's already gone. If you're buying or selling in Johnson County this fall, reach out and I'll pull the current numbers for you. I refresh this data every week, so what you get will be current.
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