Residential building permits in NWA surge through first 4 months

Northwest Arkansas

by Paul Gatling ([email protected]) June 7, 2021 3:53 pm 1,712 views 

Bolstered by a tremendous surge in Fayetteville, residential building permit activity for single-family homes in Northwest Arkansas’s four largest cities is well ahead of last year’s pace through the first four months of 2021.

According to permit data from each city collected by the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal, there were 638 residential building permits issued through April in Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale. That’s up 40% from the same period of 2020 (456 permits).

The permits through April this year have a combined value of $194.82 million, up 44.3% compared with $134.98 million last year.

Officials in Fayetteville issued the most permits through April with 307 ($81.35 million), up a whopping 93% from the previous year of 159 ($48.1 million).

Taylor Marquess, president of Riverwood Homes, a Fayetteville homebuilder, attributed the increase to the city’s lot availability.

“I know a good number of production builders like us were in between subdivisions for 2020 and had our subdivisions final platted in the first quarter of 2021,” he said. “We had just a handful of permits pulled last year in Fayetteville. This year, however, we have pulled 91 permits to date as we had our 126-lot Phase 6 of Sloanbrooke get final platted in the first quarter.”

The report from the other cities through the first four months was:

  • Rogers: 181 permits, $54.24 million (2021); 123 permits, $33.92 million (2020).
  • Bentonville: 94 permits, $37.73 million (2021); 94 permits, $33.65 million (2020).
  • Springdale: 56 permits, $21.5 million (2021); 80 permits, $19.31 million (2020).

In Bella Vista, through April this year, city officials issued 220 permits valued at $62.75 million. That’s up from 129 permits and $32.44 million in the same period of 2020.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development, residential building permits in the U.S. in April were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.76 million. That was 0.3% higher than the revised March rate and 60.9% above the April 2020 rate.