The Gateway City is Losing Population, but the “Refuge Market” Remains Strong
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
St. Louis, Missouri, is experiencing a certain troubling downtrend, but that does not seem to be having a negative effect on the Gateway City’s real estate market.
This past March, the median sales price had risen 10.7% year-over-year, and the city had only two months of housing supply according to St. Louis REALTORS, the area chapter of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). All of this despite a multi-decade population-loss trend that began in the 1950s.
Meggin Martin, a Compass real estate advisor, credited rising interest rates, tightening inventory, and the volatile national economy for the skyrocketing home prices.
“Houses are getting insane amounts of offers, [and] that has not slowed down,” she said. With many homeowners electing to stay in their current homes rather than pay higher interest rates, housing inventory has fallen more than 9% since late 2025.
However, even with inventory falling and competition for homes increasing, St. Louis remains a “refuge market,” Realtor.com analysts wrote in mid-December 2025. The team described this type of market as “traditionally budget-friendly cities that still offer attainable home prices.”
Although the current median list price in St. Louis is nearly $300,000, this price tag places it well below the national median home price of $415,000.
“These affordable metros have become magnets for cost-conscious movers…and this shift is reshaping the geography of U.S. housing demand,” said Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel. He noted buyers have been “flocking to refuge markets since 2022” when mortgage rates rose past 6% in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic pricing surge. As of the beginning of 2026, Realtor.com considered St. Louis the “second-most-popular refuge market” behind only Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A Declining Population Is Not Slowing the St. Louis Market Down
Despite experiencing nearly seven decades of population decline, the St. Louis housing market is not slowing down. In addition to drawing homebuyers from the west coast, the Gateway City, so nicknamed for the Gateway Arch that is currently the tallest monument in the United States and symbolizes St. Louis’s position as the self-proclaimed “Gateway to the West,” also pulls in new residents from Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; and Denver, Colorado.
Local agent Tommy Espenschied credited the city’s “great attractions, entertainment, amazing food, and really beautiful homes with lots of options” for the ongoing sellers’ market. He noted many buyers are opting to purchase properties in need of renovation or that are more than 25 miles outside of the city in order to make the acquisition work.
Residents commuting into the city from 25 miles away experience a roughly 40-minute drive, Espenschied said, noting that compared to “a couple of miles in L.A., San Francisco, New York, or Chicago,” the commute not much of a “hassle.” He continued, “If you are willing to do a little bit of work, there is actually some really solid inventory out there [and] some beautiful projects to be done…. That would be the best opportunity into whatever deal you are looking for.”
Even with refuge buyers moving into the area, the St. Louis population continued to fall between 2020 and 2024, with a net 21,000 residents leaving the area. Ness Sandoval, a professor of sociology and demography at St. Louis University, said the decline is, at this point, largely due to the loss of young families with children. He noted urban housing in the area is “not aimed at families,” and said that although many single professionals are moving into the area, it takes several of these households to replace just one family.
“We are building lots of condos, a lot of apartments that are for single people [or] for double-income, no kids [households],” Sandoval said. “The rents are extremely expensive.”
In the long-term, this young-family exodus could represent a problem for investors acquiring properties in areas where local school districts are suffering as a result of the population loss. Sandoval said the St. Louis Public Schools are currently facing serious challenges as many pupils and their families depart for suburban areas with more green space and better academic options.
Despite these issues, the real estate market in St. Louis appears poised to remain strong for the foreseeable future, thanks to the area’s relative affordability, tight inventory, and need for new and varied housing options. Investors in the St. Louis market should monitor their assets closely to track the effects of population changes on hyper-local markets to get the best results and stay ahead of fluctuation.
SIDEBAR 1
By the Numbers
$226.6 Billion // The GDP of Greater St. Louis in 2023 // U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
630 Feet // The height of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis
6 // The number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in St. Louis
10 // The number of Fortune 1000 companies headquartered in St. Louis
1 // St. Louis is home to one of two federal reserve banks located in Missouri
100 // In 2026, Livability.com included St. Louis in its list of “Top 100 Best Places to Live” in the United States
21,000 // Between 2020 and 2024, St. Louis lost more than 21,000 residents.
65% // Since 1950, St. Louis has seen a 65% population drop
SIDEBAR 2
‘Murdered Out’ Houses Now Frozen in St. Louis Thanks to Red Door/Lighthouse ‘Ponzi Scam’
Imagine waking up one morning and looking out the window to see how work is coming on the house next door. You know there is a rehab going on, and you are eager for the work to be completed because a lot of it is happening in the middle of the night. Then, you gasp.
Sure, it looks like the work is finished, but the house has been painted a lurid, blood red with black accents. It is appallingly ugly, and now you are wondering if you are going to live next door to a haunted attraction.
It will turn out your neighbors are not the undead, but the house is well on its way to being a zombie house. It is just one of the many properties acquired by two companies now accused of being part of a strange Ponzi scheme that involves painting finished rehabs black and red, carving tiny windows into the facades of the buildings, and then deserting the projects before they are finished.
St. Louis, Missouri, has seen a plethora of these properties, which some neighbors called “murdered out” houses due to the macabre color schemes and strangely small windows. The city had been fighting these rehabs for months due to a failure on the part of the company to obtain construction permits, which is likely why so much of the work went on at night.
According to a complaint filed against the two companies, Red Door Legacy and Lighthouse Estates, in New York, the owner of both companies used money from newer investors to pay off older investors and “mask operational shortfalls.” He also is accused of selling short-term, secured rehab loans and starting his own “bank” for private lenders that allegedly stopped payments to lenders in 2025. At present, the assets are frozen, so the half-finished rehabs could remain in their current state indefinitely. Investors involved in the lawsuit say they lost more than $1.1 million.
