Lawrence's New Construction Prices Are Outrunning Resale. The Land Records Explain Why.

Ask five people in Lawrence what a house costs right now and you will get five different numbers, and here is the strange part: none of them are wrong. They are just each describing a different slice of the same market, and in April 2026 those slices pulled further apart than usual.

The gap is not noise. It shows up in the same monthly report, measured the same way, by the same board of REALTORS. And once you see where it comes from, it tells you something useful whether you are shopping a resale ranch in central Lawrence or watching a new build go up on the edge of town.

Two Numbers From the Same Month, the Same City

The Lawrence Board of REALTORS® publishes a monthly market report for the city and Douglas County, and its April 2026 numbers put two very different growth rates side by side.

Existing homes crept up in price the way you would expect in a steady market. New construction jumped more than five times as fast. If you only read a single blended average for "Lawrence home prices," you would never know these two categories were moving at such different speeds, because the blended number smooths right over the split.

It is worth saying plainly that three new-construction sales is a small sample, and a single expensive lot can swing an average like that on its own. But the direction lines up with something happening a few blocks away at the courthouse, which makes it much harder to wave off as a fluke.

What the Board President's Quote Doesn't Quite Capture

Erin Maigaard, the Lawrence Board of REALTORS® 2026 president, described the April conditions in terms familiar to anyone who has read a market update before. She said that with buyer demand remaining strong and homes continuing to sell quickly, it is an excellent time for homeowners considering a sale to enter the market, and that limited inventory continues to create opportunities for sellers who price and market effectively.

That is a fair read of the price data. It is a less complete read of the volume data. The same April 2026 report shows total contracts written at 114, down from 126 in April 2025, a drop of nearly ten percent. Prices rose. Fewer people actually signed a contract.

Those two facts are not contradictory. They are consistent with a market where fewer transactions are happening, but the ones that do happen skew toward pricier categories, especially new construction. Fewer deals, and the deals that close are increasingly clustered at the top of the price range. That is a different market story than "demand remains strong," even though both statements are technically true.

Where the Premium Is Actually Coming From

The most useful explanation does not come from the realtor board at all. It comes from the Douglas County Appraiser's Office, which mailed its 2026 property value notices in late February. According to the county's own release, an annual market study reviewing more than 2,000 sales, along with cost data from the Marshall & Swift Valuation Service and rent and expense figures for leased properties, found that roughly 90% of properties in the county saw their assessed value rise from 2025 to 2026, with most of those increases landing between 1% and 8%.

Vacant land moved differently. The same release put vacant land price increases between 3% and 20%, a much wider and generally steeper range than the built-property number. Agricultural land value, by contrast, held essentially flat.

That distinction matters more than it looks like at first glance. A resale home's price reflects land that was purchased years ago, often at a much lower basis. A new construction home's price has to absorb today's land cost in full, on day one. If raw land in parts of the county appreciated up to 20% in a single assessment cycle while built homes moved closer to single digits, builders pricing new inventory in 2026 are working from a more expensive starting line than the resale market around them. That is a structural reason for the 30.1% new-construction jump to look large, rather than a story about builders simply charging more for the same thing.

The county's process itself reflects how seriously that land data gets checked. Property owners had a month to appeal their notices, with a deadline of March 30, and the appraiser's office held in-person sessions that spring at the Lecompton Community Building, the Baldwin City Library, Eudora City Hall, and the historic courthouse at 1100 Massachusetts Street, in addition to a walk-in day at the courthouse for anyone with questions. That is not a rubber-stamp valuation. It is a county-wide sales study with a public comment window built in, which is part of why the resulting land numbers are worth taking seriously when you are trying to understand why new construction costs what it costs.

What This Means If You're Comparing New Construction to Resale

If you are actively weighing a new build against an existing home in the Lawrence area this year, a few things follow directly from the numbers above:

1. A new-construction quote reflects 2026 land pricing, not 2020 or 2022 land pricing. If the lot cost has already moved up double digits in a single assessment cycle, that shows up in your final price whether or not the builder's margin changed at all.
2. An existing home's price is doing less work to catch up. Its land basis is older and its assessed value moved in the more modest 1% to 8% band, which is part of why resale pricing has stayed comparatively steady even as new-build pricing accelerated.
3. Fewer transactions does not mean less competition for the right property. With total contracts down to 114 in April 2026 from 126 the year before, the properties that are moving may still see real competition, especially if they are priced and prepared well.
4. The premium on new construction is not evenly distributed across Douglas County. Because vacant land increases ranged from 3% to 20% depending on location, a lot on the edge of a fast-growing area could carry a very different premium than one in a slower-moving pocket of the county.

None of this means new construction is a bad choice or that resale is automatically the better value. It means the two markets are being shaped by different forces right now, and a buyer who understands which force applies to the home in front of them is in a stronger position to judge whether the asking price makes sense.

A Few Questions Worth Asking

Does this mean resale homes in Lawrence are undervalued? Not necessarily. It means resale prices are reflecting an older land basis and a steadier assessment history, which is a different thing from being underpriced. A resale home's fair value still depends on its own condition, location, and recent comparable sales.

Should I wait for new-construction prices to level off? There is no way to know that from this data alone. What the numbers do tell you is that a chunk of the new-construction premium is tied to land costs that already moved through the county's 2026 assessment cycle, which is a more durable factor than a temporary pricing decision a builder could reverse.

How do I find out what happened to land values near a specific property I'm considering? The Douglas County Appraiser's Office is the source for that. Their 2026 study is public, and the appeal process each spring gives a sense of how contested or settled a given valuation is in a specific area.

Let's Talk About Which Market You're Actually In

Whether you are comparing a new build against a resale listing, or trying to price your own home against a moving target, the numbers above only help if someone walks through what they mean for your specific address, your specific neighborhood, and your specific timeline. That is the kind of conversation Sandra Zepeda has with buyers and sellers across Lawrence and the rest of Northeast Kansas every week, in English or in Spanish, with the same patience either way.

Let's Connect.