Kansas Pre-Foreclosures Decline in 2025, but Economic Pressures Still Threaten Homeowners

A State Watching Its Housing Stability Shift

In a small town outside Wichita, a mother of two folds laundry in a powder-blue bungalow she’s lived in for nearly a decade. She bought it in 2015, working nights at a hospital and bartending on weekends to manage the down payment. Today, behind on her mortgage for the third consecutive month, she’s unsure whether she’ll get to keep her home.

“I always thought if I just worked hard, the roof over our heads would be safe,” she says, asking that her name not be used. “But it feels like I’m getting squeezed from all sides—gas, groceries, rent, everything’s up.”

Her story is one of many in Kansas, where economic strain continues to rattle low- and middle-income homeowners, even as the raw data suggests an overall decline in pre-foreclosure filings. The numbers alone don’t show the anxiety, the stripped-down budgets, or the calls from lenders. And they offer little comfort to those standing on the edge of losing their homes.

Pre-Foreclosure Filings Drop in Kansas: May 2025 Snapshot

According to the most recent data, Kansas recorded 57 pre-foreclosure properties in May 2025, a significant 38.71% decrease from the 93 filings in April 2025. Compared to the same month last year, pre-foreclosures have dropped by 17.39%, down from 69 in May 2024.

At first glance, these numbers speak to a stabilizing market, or at least one that is not accelerating toward crisis. But behind that statistical tapering are deeper, more ambiguous signals. The decline might suggest less financial distress among homeowners, or it could reflect procedural lags in filings or forbearance extensions granted by lenders wary of tightening too quickly amid a still-shaky economy.

The Long Arc of Kansas’s Foreclosure Crisis

To understand where Kansas stands today, it helps to look backward. The 2008 housing crash hit Kansas later and in many ways softer than coastal states, but by 2009, the state reported more than 8,000 pre-foreclosures, doubling the 2008 count. That number peaked in 2011 with 10,599 pre-foreclosure filings, echoing the national housing collapse.

Since then, the state’s numbers have moved steadily downward—671 filings in 2015, plummeting to just 33 in 2016. But recent years have complicated that narrative.

In 2023, pre-foreclosures climbed back to 1,139, and while 2024 closed with 738 filings, the first five months of 2025 have seen just 325 filings, suggesting a renewed downward trend. Yet that trend shouldn’t be confused with recovery. Fewer notices don’t always mean fewer homeowners in distress.

Some lenders have adopted longer grace periods; others have shifted focus to loss-mitigation strategies. That can temporarily suppress foreclosure starts without resolving the underlying financial fragility.

The Invisible Squeeze on Kansas Homeowners

Digging into the broader economic picture, Kansas families—especially those in rural and suburban areas—continue to grapple with a volatile mix of inflation, rising insurance premiums, and stagnant wages. Housing affordability has become elusive as both buying and renting demand higher monthly costs.

Kansas has long marketed itself as a sanctuary of affordability. But persistent inflation and a constricted supply of affordable housing—particularly in urban centers such as Kansas City and Topeka—have chipped away at that image. In many towns, the cost of homeownership has become detached from what local incomes can sustain.

“It’s not that people made bad choices,” says a housing counselor with a nonprofit in central Kansas. “They didn’t suddenly start skipping mortgage payments. The price of living just went up, and their paychecks didn’t.”

That disconnect is especially pronounced for low-income residents. Even modest financial shocks—an unexpected medical bill, a car repair, or a cut in work hours—can send households into a spiral. Once a missed payment turns into two, the cascade begins.

Conclusion: The Numbers Aren’t the Whole Story

While Kansas’s pre-foreclosure data paints a picture of ongoing recovery from the great foreclosure wave of the late 2000s, the human reality is far more complex. Affordable housing remains out of reach for too many. Inflation continues to erode real wages. And a system strained by rising costs and falling margins leaves even responsible homeowners one paycheck away from losing decades of stability.

The decline in pre-foreclosure filings does not erase the anxiety hanging over hundreds of Kansas families. Without targeted housing support, wage growth, and expanded financial counseling, the line between a resolved crisis and just a delayed one could prove incredibly thin.