Home sales in Arkansas were up 6.5 percent in September, compared with September last year, the Arkansas Realtors Association said Friday.
There were 3,010 homes sold in September, the fifth-straight month that more than 3,000 homes were sold in the 43-county area surveyed by the association.
The last time there was a string of months with more than 3,000 homes sold was in 2007, said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Benton County Realtors had the most sales -- 554 homes sold, 100 more than Pulaski County's 454 homes sold.
The average home price in September was $171,460, up from $161,363 in September last year.
"Benton County has clearly been one of the hot spots of economic growth in the state," said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Before this year, the most homes sold in Benton County was 566 in September 2005. But that has been exceeded in May, June, July and August this year, Deck said. The high was set in June with 628 homes sold in Benton County.
"The kinds of growth that are going on in Benton County, reaping the rewards of the investments that have been made there make it a really nice place to live," Deck said. "Of course, the fact that there are job opportunities are reflected in these kinds of numbers."
There are close to 530,000 people living in the Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area with the population increasing about 900 every month, including births, Deck said.
"Obviously the houses sold are not just to new families," Deck said. "But when you have a low interest-rate environment with increasing prices for awhile, it has allowed some of the people who may have been underwater on their [mortgages] to sell their houses, make a profit and move up or move down."
The boom in Benton and Washington counties is spilling over into Crawford County, said Pat Satterfield of Pat Satterfield Realtors in Alma.
Realtors from Northwest Arkansas are buying more homes and property in Crawford County than ever before, Satterfield said.
"The gap is closing between Alma and Fayetteville," Satterfield said. "Interstate 49 has done that. It is only about 30 to 35 minutes. We have a lot of people who live in Alma and commute to Northwest Arkansas and work. One spouse may work in Fort Smith and the other in Fayetteville and they live in Alma."
There were 84 homes sold in Crawford County in September, almost 80 percent more than the 47 homes sold in September last year, the Realtors association said.
The residential home market has exploded, Satterfield said.
"It's just unbelievable," she said. "It's great, but we need more houses for sale."
Normally, about 90-100 homes are listed for sale in Alma, Satterfield said. Now there are about 50 for sale.
"We need new construction, we need raw land, but it's not out there anymore," said Satterfield, who has been in real estate for 38 years. "There has been such a run, but it's still going. I don't see any slowdown at all."
Satterfield said she has a couple of buyers looking for homes in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.
"But I can't find anything for them," she said. "That's frustrating. We need people to put their houses on the market."
Almost 26,000 homes have been sold in the first nine months of the year in Arkansas, up 8.9 percent and more than 2,000 homes above the number sold in the same period last year. The average home price through September was $169,324, up 4.4 percent from $162,137 for the first nine months last year.
The almost 9 percent growth for the year is healthy, Pakko said.
"The housing market has finally recovered," Pakko said. "We've had two strong years before this year. Home sales are at about pre-recession levels."
Interest rates on a 30-year conventional loan have risen slightly this week, from about 3.5 percent to almost 4 percent, said Scott McElmurry, chief executive officer of Bank of Little Rock Mortgage.
"Most of the time when you see the stock market doing well, the bond market is not doing so well," McElmurry said.
In August, there were almost 3,300 homes sold, up 15 percent compared with August last year, the association said.
Business on 11/12/2016