September home sales dip in two-county area

Despite a September dip, the residential housing market activity in Benton and Washington counties is still running slightly ahead of last year’s pace.

According to the latest figures, real estate agents in the two-county area combined to sell 728 homes in September, with a sales volume of $172.33 million. That’s down 14% from 849 home sales ($184.9 million) in the same month last year.

The data is from the Matrix software platform used by the Northwest Arkansas Board of Realtors (NABOR).

Benton County reported 451 home sales worth a combined $108.57 million in September. That compares with 563 and $126.81 million in the year-ago month. In Washington County, agents sold 277 homes in September — down slightly from 286 last year — with a cumulative value of $63.76 million, up from $58.08 million.

Year-to-date numbers through the first eight months show 7,660 homes were sold in the two-county area, with a combined sales volume of $1.8 billion. That compares with 7,503 home sales in the same period last year (up 2%), with a combined sales volume of $1.67 billion (up 7.8%).

The average price of each home sale was up in both counties through the first eight months of the year. In Benton County, the average home sale had an average value of $239,112, up 4.8% from $228,068 in the same period last year. In Washington County, the average home sale price through September was $229,065, up 7.1% from $213,868.