The payment is only part of it. This adds the property tax for the county you're actually in, insurance, and a typical metro utility bill.
$0 a month apart on an identical house — almost entirely property tax.
Levies are set per taxing district, so two homes of equal value in the same county can differ substantially. Verify with the county collector before relying on this.
Nearly everyone arrives with a payment quote and no idea what lands on top of it. The number that decides whether you can live here is the payment plus the county property tax, the homeowner's premium and the utility bill — and that total is not the same on both sides of the state line. Move the price slider, then read the two counties side by side: the gap between them is almost entirely property tax.
There is no answer to the state-line question that holds for everybody, and anyone who gives you one is selling something. What the components do is decompose it, so you can see which part of the bill is doing the work at your price and in your situation.
Principal and interest is a straight 30-year amortisation of the price minus your down payment, at the Freddie Mac 30-year survey rate. The tool reads that rate weekly from the St. Louis Fed and prints it with its date underneath, rather than baking a number into the page that goes stale in a fortnight. Two things to hold against it: the survey average describes a well-qualified borrower putting 20% down, and the calculator does not add mortgage insurance when you choose 5% or 10%. Under roughly 20% down, your real payment is higher than the bar shown. Choosing "Cash" zeroes this bar and leaves the other three standing, which is the point of showing them separately.
Property tax is the bar that moves when you cross the line, and it is also the one people most often quote at each other incorrectly, because two different rates go by the same name. The effective rate is what current owners actually pay divided by what their homes are worth — the figure Zillow, the Tax Foundation and your future neighbour are all quoting. The statutory rate is what you would owe if your home were assessed at what you just paid for it. Missouri assesses residential property at 19% of market value and applies the combined levy of every overlapping district per $100 of assessed value; Kansas assesses at 11.5% of appraised value and applies mills per $1,000. The tool leads with the effective rate and warns you when the statutory one is materially higher, because that gap is where reassessment shock lives.
Insurance is carried as a flat annual premium for each state rather than a percentage of the purchase price. That is deliberate: insurers price against replacement cost, which excludes your land, and the industry's own data shows the ratio falling steadily as houses get more expensive — so any single percentage is wrong at the cheap end and wrong again at the expensive end.
Utilities is a metro-wide monthly average for electricity, natural gas and water and sewer. It is worth knowing that this bar does not move with the price slider. It is an average across every residential account in the two states, not a model of the house you are looking at, and it excludes trash, internet and anything an HOA bundles.
The panel compares Clay County, Missouri with Johnson County, Kansas because a state average hides more than it shows. Inside Kansas alone the statutory rate runs from about 1.26% of value in Johnson County to about 1.83% in Wyandotte County — a wider spread than anything between the two state averages. Levies are set by each overlapping taxing district, so two houses of identical value in the same county, a mile apart, can land in different school and fire districts and pay noticeably different bills.
Treat the total as a planning figure to shop with. A lender can turn it into a real number in about ten minutes.
It depends on your income, your price and where you work, and the components point in both directions. On property tax actually paid, Clay County, Missouri sits at 1.07% of home value and Johnson County, Kansas at 1.14% (US Census ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates). On water and sewer, the Missouri side runs higher — KC Water's average residential bill is $135.67 a month against $105.44 on the Johnson County system (FY2026 and 2026 rate schedules), largely because of a federally mandated sewer consent decree. And a household inside the Kansas City, Missouri city limits pays the city's 1% earnings tax. Run your own price through both columns rather than trusting a rule of thumb.
The rate is not the reason. Kansas assesses homes at 11.5% of appraised value and Johnson County's 2025 countywide average levy was 109.474 mills, which works out to about 1.26% of value — the lowest statutory rate of any county in the metro (Kansas Department of Revenue, Property Valuation Division, 2025). The bills are large because the values are. Median owner-occupied value in Johnson County is $391,200 and median real estate tax actually paid is $4,447, against $275,600 and $2,941 in Clay County, Missouri (ACS 2020-2024). A tax bill is a rate multiplied by a value, and here it is the second term doing the work.
Very possibly, and this is the single most common unpleasant surprise for buyers moving here. Effective rates describe assessments already on the books, and those lag the market — in Cass County, Missouri, owners currently pay only about 60% of what the statutory rate implies, while in Johnson County, Kansas they already pay about 90% of it. A recent sale gives an assessor a fresh, hard number for what your home is worth. Budget against the statutory figure, not the one the last owner paid, and ask the county collector what the current levy is for that specific tax code.
The figure this tool uses is $321.08 a month for a single-family household, being electricity $126.54, natural gas $73.98 and water and sewer $120.56 (EIA 2024 state averages; KC Water FY2026 and WaterOne and Johnson County Wastewater 2026 rate schedules). Two warnings. It is an average across every residential account in Missouri and Kansas, so an older or larger house, or electric rather than gas heat, will run well above it. And gas is spread evenly across twelve months, so your January bill will look nothing like one twelfth of the year.
This tool will not answer that, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise, because affordability turns on your other debts, your credit and your down payment as much as on the house. What it does give you is the honest denominator — not the payment alone, but the payment plus tax, insurance and utilities, which is the number that actually leaves your account every month. Take that figure to a lender, who will qualify you on total housing cost plus your other obligations. It is a ten-minute conversation and it costs nothing.
No, none of the three, and each one matters. Below roughly 20% down you will pay mortgage insurance until the balance reaches 78% of the original value, at which point federal law requires it to terminate; as an order of magnitude, FHA's annual premium on a 90% loan is 0.50% of the balance a year. HOA dues vary from nothing to several hundred dollars a month and are set by the association, not by any public schedule. Maintenance is not a bill at all, but a 1950s ranch with an original sewer lateral will find you.
Because that figure is a statewide average from a data year that is now some distance behind us: the NAIC reports the average HO-3 premium at $1,668 in Missouri and $1,583 in Kansas for data year 2022, which is the most recent year it has published. Midwest premiums have risen sharply since, and an individual quote turns on roof age and material, prior claims, your deductible, hail exposure and credit-based insurance score. Read the insurance bar as a floor, and get a real quote before you write an offer.
On taxes actually paid as a share of home value, the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates put Cass County, Missouri at 0.86%, Platte at 1.05%, Clay at 1.07%, Jackson at 1.12%, Johnson County, Kansas at 1.14%, Leavenworth at 1.21% and Wyandotte at 1.46%. Do not read those as a league table for choosing where to live. Levies are set per taxing district, and the spread inside a single county is often larger than the gap between two counties, so the only figure that matters is the one for the specific address.
Sources on this page — mortgage rate: Freddie Mac 30-year survey via FRED, refreshed weekly, dated on the panel above · Property tax rates paid: US Census ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates, tables B25103 and B25077 · Statutory rates and levies: county collector and clerk schedules, Missouri State Auditor certified 2025 rates, Kansas Department of Revenue Property Valuation Division 2025 · Insurance: NAIC homeowners report, data year 2022 · Utilities: EIA 2024, KC Water FY2026, WaterOne and Johnson County Wastewater 2026 · Earnings tax: City of Kansas City, Missouri Revenue Division, retrieved 11 Aug 2026.