Sell Your Commercial Property In Missouri

The Missouri rental market at a glance

Missouri had 799,814 renter households in the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey, or 31.9% of 2,508,227 occupied homes. Owners hold the other 68.1%. Missouri's housing stock leans toward smaller buildings: just 362,021 of 2,825,287 statewide housing units, 12.8% of the total, sit in buildings of five or more units, per ACS table B25024.

Missouri rental vacancy stood at 5.0% in the 2020-2024 DP04 housing profile. Statewide median household income was $70,702, so the $1,033 median gross rent equals about 17.5% of a typical household's gross income. Renters feel more pressure than that average suggests: 45.6% of Missouri renter households paid 30% or more of income on rent, per ACS table B25070.

Five-year trends in Missouri

Missouri median gross rent rose 24.5% between the 2015-2019 and 2020-2024 ACS periods, from $830 to $1,033 a month. Median household income grew faster, up 27.5% over the same span, from $55,461 to $70,702. Unlike many states, Missouri incomes outpaced rents by three percentage points.

Missouri renter households barely moved, falling 0.3% to 799,814 even as rents climbed. Units in five-plus buildings rose 6.3% statewide, adding roughly 21,600 units. Missouri's apartment supply grew faster than its renter base over the period.

Growth was uneven across the five Missouri counties covered here. St. Charles County rents rose 31.6% and Jackson County rents 31.5% between the two ACS periods, the fastest in this set. St. Louis County's population slipped 0.1%, the only one of the five to shrink.

Missouri county comparison

Median gross rent across these five Missouri counties ranges from $1,197 in Jackson County to $1,370 in St. Charles County. Rental vacancy runs from 4.0% in Jackson County to 6.2% in St. Charles County, per each county's 2020-2024 ACS figures.

Jackson County carries the highest renter share among these five Missouri counties, at 40.9%, and the highest share of units in five-plus buildings, at 20.4%. St. Charles County is the most owner-heavy, with renters in just 19.5% of occupied homes.

Missouri landlord, tax and transfer rules

Missouri bars local rent control outright. RSMo 441.043 prohibits any city or county from regulating rent amounts on residential or commercial rental property, and a 2025 amendment also blocks local deposit caps, source-of-income bans and added screening limits.

Missouri caps a security deposit at two months' rent under RSMo 535.300, held in a federally insured account. A landlord must return the deposit, or an itemized list of deductions, within 30 days of lease termination; wrongful withholding doubles the amount owed.

Missouri classifies most apartment buildings as commercial property under RSMo 137.016, assessed at 32% of market value, versus 19% for residential and 12% for agricultural land. Real property is reassessed in odd-numbered years, so a strong rent year can show up unevenly across Missouri counties.

Missouri does not impose a statewide real estate transfer tax on deed transfers, so no state levy comes off a Missouri sale price at closing.

What this means if you sell in Missouri

Owners weighing a sale in Missouri are priced on rent rolls, vacancy and the next reassessment. A building in Jackson County, at 4.0% vacancy, reads differently to a buyer than one in St. Charles County at 6.2%.

Taxes deserve a close look before you sell an apartment building in Missouri. Because RSMo 137.016 assesses commercial and multifamily property at 32% of market value with reassessment every odd year, we model the coming cycle rather than just last year's bill.

We work as a multifamily buyer in Missouri across the five counties above and the rest of the state. Send the rent roll and latest Missouri tax statement, and we will set the property against these county figures if you sell commercial property in Missouri.