Neighborhood · Missouri · Jackson County · Downtown
Longfellow
Historic. Porched. Tree-Lined.
Forty blocks, laid out on a grid: 25th Street down to 31st, Troost Avenue across to Gillham Road and McGee Trafficway. German settlers platted it just before 1900 and called it Deutsche Hill; the name flattened to Dutch Hill and then to Longfellow, after the elementary school, which was already on the Sanborn maps by 1907.
The houses are Victorian and early-1900s — brick and clapboard, two and three stories, deep front porches, narrow lots that run long back to an alley. The street trees are the ones that were planted with the houses, which means the canopy is genuinely mature and genuinely old, and a fair number of those trees are due for work. Many of these houses were divided into apartments mid-century, and a lot of the current construction activity is the reverse operation: undoing the conversions and putting them back to single-family.
The condition curve
Condition here is a house-by-house question, and no summary paragraph substitutes for an inspection. A fully restored Victorian and one that has had no systems work since its mid-century apartment conversion can sit on the same street. That variance is the single most important thing to understand about buying here, and it shapes everything downstream: what you pay, what an appraiser can find to compare it to, and what your lender will and won't do.
The money
Jackson County, KCMO, Kansas City Public Schools: 83.882 mills against Missouri's 19% residential assessment ratio, a statutory 1.594% of market value. Add the city's 1% earnings tax, owed by every KCMO resident on all wages, wherever they're earned.
On price, we are careful on purpose. Zillow's home-value index put Longfellow at $350,399 in May 2026, down 2.3% year over year, with 8 listings on the market. That is an index, not a closed-sale median, and we label it as one. Three other sources gave three different "medians" the day we wrote this — $415,000, $392,000, $375,000 — and one of those is a list price wearing a sale price's coat. On stock this varied, a single median is close to meaningless. When we have a clean twelve-month closed-sale pull with the count printed beside it, it replaces this, and not before.
What to inspect
Assume a hundred-year-old house behaves like one. Knob-and-tube remnants and cloth-wrapped wiring behind newer panels. Galvanized supply lines. A clay sewer lateral with a century of root intrusion — scope it. Stone or brick foundations that want repointing. Original single-pane sash. Slate or old asphalt roofs. If a house was converted to apartments and back, ask what was permitted and what the legal use on file with the city actually is.
Getting around
Walk Score 68, Transit 50. Downtown is five minutes; the Plaza is eight, straight down Gillham. The KC Streetcar's fare-free Main Street extension — 3.5 miles, 16 stops, Union Station to UMKC — opened in October 2025 a few blocks west, and the traffic pattern on the west side of the neighborhood reflects it.
Ruby Jean's Kitchen & Juicery sits at 3000 Troost, open since 2015. The Longfellow Community Association, a 501(c)(3) since the 1970s, still meets, and it is the practical channel for permits, streets, and code issues.
Schools
Kansas City Public Schools, District 33, serves this area. As everywhere in this metro, district boundaries do not follow neighborhood or city lines — verify the assignment at the address level before you write an offer, and note that KCPS operates a school-choice process rather than pure geographic assignment for many buildings.
The housing and the streets
- Victorian and early-1900s detached houses on a tight grid — deep front porches, mature street trees, and lots that are long and narrow rather than wide.
- Forty blocks bounded by 25th to 31st, Troost Avenue to Gillham Road / McGee Trafficway; five minutes to downtown, eight to the Plaza, straight down Gillham.
- Walk Score 68, Transit Score 50. The fare-free KC Streetcar Main Street extension (16 stops, Union Station to UMKC) opened in October 2025 a few blocks west.
- Predominantly non-HOA stock — detached houses plus small multifamily, including houses previously divided into apartments and now being converted back.
- The Longfellow Community Association has been a 501(c)(3) since the 1970s and holds regular public meetings; it is an active channel for street, permit, and infrastructure issues.
What to know before you write an offer
- Condition varies widely house to house. A fully renovated Victorian and a house that has not been updated since its last conversion can sit on the same street and close in the same month, so evaluate each property on its own inspection and scope of work rather than on a neighborhood-wide assumption.
- Comparable sales are thin, and appraisals are correspondingly hard to predict. If you are financing a rehab, line up the renovation loan product early — a 203(k) or a construction-to-perm underwrite is a longer timeline than a conventional purchase.
- The housing stock is roughly 100 to 125 years old. Budget for knob-and-tube remnants, cloth-wrapped wiring, galvanized supply lines, clay sewer laterals with root intrusion, original single-pane windows, and stone or brick foundations that need repointing. Get a sewer scope, not just a general inspection.
- Many houses were cut into apartments mid-century and are being cut back to single-family. Ask what the current legal use is on file with the city, and whether any prior conversion work was permitted.
- The property levy is 83.882 mills against Missouri's 19% residential assessment ratio — an effective 1.594% of market value. On top of that, every KCMO resident owes the city's 1% earnings tax on all wages, wherever earned.
- The built infrastructure here is as old as the housing: century-old water and sewer mains, brick alleys, original curb-and-gutter, and street segments that predate current KCMO paving standards. Street resurfacing and water-main replacement are city capital-program items on a long cycle, so expect utility cuts, patched pavement, and periodic street work.
- We publish no closed-sale median here. The figure shown is Zillow's home-value index. On 2026-07-14 three other sources gave three different Longfellow 'medians' — $415,000, $392,000, and a $375,000 list price — which tells you how unstable a single number is on this stock.
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