The Kansas City metro spans two states, and we work across the whole of it. KonAspen was founded here in 2017, and being rooted in the metro is not a marketing line — it is how we source deals, price them, and hold them. KC's housing market has long been steadier and less volatile than the coasts, which suits the way we invest: underwrite like a lender, operate like an owner, and let a stable market do the compounding rather than force it. This is our view of the metro — how the two sides of the state line differ, why the stability here is an asset rather than a compromise, and the range of ways we put capital to work in it.
Kansas City is really one economy stretched across a state line. The Kansas side — Johnson County's suburbs of Leawood, Overland Park, Prairie Village, and Olathe — holds much of the metro's premier residential demand, with strong school districts and deep move-up buyer pools. Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission draw families who buy for the district and stay for it, and that demand tends to hold a floor under values through a softer cycle. The Missouri side ranges from the urban core and its infill opportunities to established suburbs and the higher-end pockets south of the city, including ground-up work like our luxury rebuild in Loch Lloyd. We underwrite on both sides of the line, because the right deal doesn't care which state it sits in.
That breadth is an advantage. When we can source across the full metro, we are choosing from a wider set of streets and price points rather than competing for whatever a single submarket happens to offer in a given quarter. The two states also carry different tax treatment, different closing customs, and different buyer expectations, and knowing those differences is part of pricing a deal correctly rather than a detail we discover after we own it. Local knowledge, block by block, is what lets us tell the cheapest house on a great street from a cheap house on a street that will stay cheap.
The case for Kansas City is unglamorous and durable. Housing costs sit close to the fundamentals of local income, so prices are not propped up by speculation the way they are in the most expensive coastal markets. That means fewer violent swings, a buyer pool that keeps transacting through the cycle, and rents and values that track the real economy rather than sentiment. When the coasts overshoot and correct, the Midwest tends to have less distance to fall, because it did not climb on borrowed optimism in the first place.
For an investor, less volatility is not a consolation prize — it is the point. A market that doesn't lurch lets us price risk into the basis with confidence and hold a position long enough for the plan to work. We get paid to be patient, and Kansas City is a market that rewards patience. It also means our downside cases are grounded in a market with a track record of holding together, rather than one where a single bad quarter can erase a year of gains.
That stability also shapes how we finance. When values track the local economy rather than sentiment, a lender's assumptions hold, refinancing is dependable, and a value-add plan can actually reach the exit it was underwritten to. The Midwest doesn't reward heroics, but it does reward discipline applied consistently over time, which is exactly the game we came here to play.
Much of what makes the metro attractive to us sits in Johnson County, Kansas, southwest of the city. Leawood, Overland Park, Prairie Village, and Olathe form a band of affluent, well-established suburbs with the metro's deepest move-up demand, and the schools are a large part of why. When a district holds its reputation for years, families keep bidding to get into it, and that steady bid is what a value-add investor is ultimately underwriting to when renovating a home to the standard of its street.
This is where our residential track record is concentrated. We have produced record price-per-foot exits in the Overland Park and Johnson County market by buying the cheapest house on the best street and renovating it to what the street expects, with a current project underway in Leawood. The strategy depends on picking the right block — a street where the ceiling is high enough that bringing a tired house up to standard is rewarded by buyers who already want to live there. Johnson County has a lot of those streets, which is why we spend so much of our time on this side of the line.
Our work spans the full range of the metro's real estate. On the residential side, we run a value-add discipline — buy the cheapest house on the best street, renovate it to the street's standard, then refinance or sell into demand the location already commands. That approach has produced roughly seven to eight profitable homes and record price-per-foot exits in the Overland Park and Johnson County market, with a current project underway in Leawood. The logic is simple and repeatable: let the location carry the value, and buy the one asset on it that the market has underpriced.
We also develop ground-up, including a luxury rebuild in Loch Lloyd, Missouri, and we invest across commercial real estate — retail, office, and mixed-use where in-place income and location hold up under scrutiny. Alongside equity, we run private, real-estate-secured lending, financing other operators against KC-area property with the same underwriting we apply to our own deals. The point of the range is fit: single-family value-add, new development, secured debt, and commercial each earn their place when the deal calls for them, rather than bending every opportunity to one strategy.
Owning real estate is only one way we participate in the metro. We also lend, privately and secured by real estate, which comes directly from where our founder started: before KonAspen, Austin built a $50 million private-credit facility and ran a debt fund, and that credit discipline is the backbone of how we operate. Lending against KC-area property lets us earn a defined return from a protected position in the stack, with the asset itself standing behind the loan, and it gives us a second way to deploy capital when the market for buying is thin.
Because we sit on both sides — as an owner who has renovated and sold homes here, and as a lender who has underwritten credit — we read a borrower's plan the way an operator would and price it the way a lender must. That dual view is what lets us structure a deal as debt when the risk calls for protection and as equity when it calls for upside, and to be honest with an investor about which one a given offering is. It is the same building sometimes; the seat we take depends on the price and the risk in front of us.
Being local is what lets us move quickly and price accurately, but our structure is built to travel. We invest as general partner and limited partner, in equity and debt, which means we can meet a deal — or an investor — wherever it makes sense on the capital stack. That flexibility comes from experience outside real estate: before KonAspen, our founder built a $50 million private-credit facility and ran a debt fund, and that credit discipline is the backbone of how we operate. The metro is where we know the streets; the structure is what lets us act on that knowledge in the way each deal deserves.
Investors participate through gated offerings — an 8% preferred debt pool, a 10% preferred equity pool, and individual deals combining a baseline preferred return with equity upside — available to accredited investors, with terms detailed in each offering's documents. None of this is an offer to sell securities or investment advice, and stated targets are not guarantees; all real estate investment carries risk of loss. Accredited investors who want to understand how we put capital to work in Kansas City can start a conversation at invest@konaspen.com.
We work across the full metro on both the Kansas and Missouri sides. Much of our residential activity is concentrated in Johnson County, Kansas — Leawood, Overland Park, Prairie Village, and Olathe — while we also pursue ground-up development on the Missouri side and commercial deals across the metro. Sourcing across both states lets us choose from a wider set of streets and price points.
Kansas City housing has historically been steadier and less volatile than the coasts, with prices sitting closer to local income fundamentals rather than propped up by speculation. That means fewer violent swings, a buyer pool that keeps transacting through the cycle, and financing assumptions that tend to hold. Less volatility lets us price risk into the basis with confidence and hold long enough for a plan to work.
On the Kansas side we have produced roughly seven to eight profitable homes and record price-per-foot exits in the Overland Park and Johnson County market, with a current project underway in Leawood. The approach is to buy the cheapest house on the best street and renovate it to the street's standard, letting strong local demand and schools carry the value. Past results are not a guarantee of future performance.
Yes. We underwrite on both sides of the state line, because the right deal does not care which state it sits in. The two states carry different tax treatment, closing customs, and buyer expectations, and knowing those differences is part of pricing a deal correctly. Our residential value-add is concentrated in Kansas, while ground-up development like our Loch Lloyd rebuild sits on the Missouri side.
Accredited investors can participate through three gated paths: an 8% preferred debt pool, a 10% preferred equity pool, or individual deals combining a baseline preferred return with equity upside. Minimums and terms vary by offering and are described in each offering's documents. Stated targets are not guarantees, all real estate carries risk of loss, and nothing here is an offer to sell securities or investment advice — start a conversation at invest@konaspen.com.
We do both. Alongside equity ownership, we run private, real-estate-secured lending against KC-area property, financing other operators with the same underwriting we apply to our own deals. That comes from our founder's background building a $50 million private-credit facility and running a debt fund before real estate, and it gives us a protected way to deploy capital when the market for buying is thin.