Fort Smith building permit values up in October

Someone forgot to tell homebuilders in the Fort Smith area about the national recession and the woes of the national homebuilding sector.

The city of Fort Smith in October issued 36 new home permits valued at $3.239 million, a value increase of 155.2% over the 12 new home permits valued at $1.269 million issued in October 2008.

Overall, Fort Smith issued 276 permits valued at $11.601 million, up 7.8% in value over the permits issued in October 2008. The October permits were boosted by $3.345 million in permits issued for the North Pointe II single-family and duplex home project of the Fort Smith Housing Authority.

“Obviously, we’re encouraged by the numbers. For 36 permits to be pulled in one month, that’s very good,” said Dave Hughes, executive director of the Greater Fort Smith Association of Home Builders. “But it also has to be tempered by the fact it may be an anomaly and not something we can expect each month.”

Hughes cautioned against reading too much into the past several months of a relatively stable local housing market. He also said it was likely many of the new home permits were for lower priced homes for the first-time homebuyer market.

“We are coming out of the tunnel, but I wouldn’t want to start talking yet about some big trend,” Hughes said.

The figures weren’t so plentiful in Van Buren. That city issued permits for 36 projects with a value of $546,000, down more than 218% from the 200 projects valued at $1.741 million in October 2008.

Greenwood issued 8 permits in October 2009 with a total value of $590,485, up compared to 6 permits with a total value of $192,590 in October 2008.