Kansas City prepares its housing market for an influx of World Cup fans

Next summer, more than half a million people are expected to head to Kansas City, Missouri, for six World Cup matches, including an appearance by defending champion Argentina.

Kansas City is the smallest of the 16 North American cities that will host games. Hotel rooms in the region number in the tens of thousands, so plenty of the anticipated 650,000 fans will likely be looking to rent through Airbnb, VRBO and the like. Six months out from the tournament, homeowners and residents around Kansas City are already preparing for a temporary spike in demand for housing.

For Roxana Shaffe, preparations started over a year ago, in November of 2024. That’s when she and her husband bought a three-bedroom townhouse in Parkville, Missouri, about 25 minutes from Arrowhead Stadium, where World Cup matches will take place next summer.

They bought the place with the World Cup in mind, but wanted time to get the hang of renting it out on sites including Airbnb.

“We wanted that time to sort of understand how these platforms work, how the processes work, not just using the technology, but what does it look like to flip a property in between guests?”

So far, “it's a little more work than we thought,” she laughed.

But, she’s getting the hang of it – regularly restocking the place with toilet paper, tissues, soap and snacks for her guests. And she hopes that next summer could generate a bit of a windfall. She’s looking to charge as much as $1,000 a night during the tournament. 

Plenty of other homeowners are looking to cash in too.

Susan Brown, head of the Kansas City Short-Term Rental Alliance, wants them to be prepared. Her group is holding crash courses to get new hosts up to speed.

Among the topics their sessions cover: “How do you stay safe, both yourself and for your guests? How do you be a good neighbor? What should your pricing be?” Brown said.

Meanwhile, regulators around the Kansas City region are making it a bit easier for homeowners to rent out their places during the Cup. For example, the city of Kansas City, Missouri usually charges $200 to register a short-term rental. For the World Cup, it’s cutting that fee to $50.

Getting more hosts up and running, Brown said, will help spread around the hundreds of millions of dollars expected to flow into the region.

“It gives the average person a little bit of ability to make a little bit of extra money this year,” she said.

The average homeowner, that is. 

“I'm worried about renters who have leases that expire somewhere around April,” said Michael Frisch, an associate professor of urban planning and design at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Frisch thinks some property owners might not renew leases in the spring so they can rent out their units to World Cup fans. Even though, he said, the region faces a housing shortage.

“Rents are going up faster than the national average,” he said. “I think that's a sign of a shortage.”

Advocates for renters are bracing themselves. Tara Raghuveer, head of the local tenant union, KC Tenants, said she hasn’t seen many renters getting pushed out yet, “but we are kind of preparing ourselves for the almost inevitability that tenants will be displaced in order for landlords to make a quick buck.”

But the Cup is also pushing some developers to bring new housing online, including Bob Mayer, a senior partner at Exact Architects in Kansas City. His firm is converting an old office building downtown.

“It’s in the heart of the old financial district where some of the banks were,” he said. “We're doing multifamily with a little bit of retail on the lower level.”

The firm’s plan is for the 49-unit building to be open by April, Mayer said, a few months ahead of the World Cup. Half of those apartments will be available short-term during the tournament. After the Cup ends, they’ll turn into long-term rentals.

“To be candid, we know that we can get probably bigger rents in the short term than we will be able to [in] the long term,” he said. “But the long term will sustain it.”

In suburban Parkville, Roxana Shaffe is also thinking about what she might do with her property after the tournament. She and her husband might turn it into a long-term rental, or they might sell. For now, though, she’s waiting for soccer fans to start reserving her place. 

“I finish work every day, and then I immediately open my personal laptop and start, like, working the algorithms,” she said.

So far, she hasn’t gotten any World Cup bookings. But, there’s still six months to go.