New house builds slowing down in Sedgwick County

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – There’s a housing shortage in Wichita and Sedgwick County. Despite the shortfall, the number of new homes being built shrunk in 2023 compared to the year before.

New home construction dropped by about 12% from 2022 to 2023.

Construction numbers in 2023 are still up compared to numbers from the past five years.

Some say the difference could be because of spikes in materials costs impacting both buyers and developers.

From 2019 to 2023, Geraldine Hendrix was looking for a house.

“It wasn’t a lot of options that I could afford,” Hendrix said.

Hendrix was able to get her house with the help of Mennonite Housing , a nonprofit that builds homes and sells them at a discounted price.

“At the end of COVID, everything was so expensive, and the interest rates went up, and they’re still going up,” said Corey Bannister, Mennonite Housing Property Development and Maintenance.

That means higher mortgages, according to Bannister.

“If you get a $150,000 house, it’s paying the same mortgage you would for a $270,000 house,” Bannister said.

At the same time, material costs spiked in COVID times but still haven’t fully recovered.

“We used to build this house for $157,000, now we’re at like $210,000,” Bannister said.

Mennonite housing has dwindled down from building 12 houses a year pre-COVID to anywhere between four and six, according to Bannister.

He said even though their grant funding from the city has gone up, it’s not enough to cover the spike in the cost to build them.

Even with mortgage rates and prices up, some people can’t afford to wait to buy homes, especially with rent rates going up.

Hendrix said her rent went from $700 to $1,200 dollars a month between 2019 to 2023.

“I figured with the apartments rate being the way they were, if I got a house me and my granddaughter could probably make it better,” Hendrix said.

This article was produced as part of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative , which includes KSN-TV and 10 other organizations and community groups.

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