Retail Vendors Boost Benton County Housing Permits

Despite the Great Recession’s best efforts, the area’s luxury housing market appears to be slowly but surely getting back on track in a handful of Northwest Arkansas markets – particularly in Benton County’s two largest communities.

Public documents reflect this news. In 2009, Bentonville and Rogers signed off on a combined 60 single-family housing permits valued at $300,000 or greater. Both rates are improvements over previous years, but even more impressive considering Fayetteville issued 13 such permits last year, while Springdale distributed one.

For people who have the means, Benton County is apparently the place to be.

“We work with a lot of vendors,” said Meza Harris, a senior vice president and executive broker with Lindsey & Associates. “I want to tell you that a lot of the vendors ask about Bentonville schools. I think a lot of times [the vendors] want in that school district, and a lot of their offices are so close. And so they just want their families to be close.”

Harris claims to still be selling homes in the $800,000-$1 million range, and this despite lingering economic woes. While some are pre-owned, others are new. She stressed there is definitely still a housing market for top-bracket consumers.

 “Shadow Valley has been consistently popular,” she said. “A lot of young vendors live there … and there’s still activity there. Builders are still building. You’ll see spec homes and custom homes. You don’t see that in other areas.”

Even so, it’s jaw-dropping to consider the clip with which top-flight residential permits were being bought and sold just a few years ago.

Paul Justus, regional planner at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, reports that Rogers led the way in 2005, selling 87 single-family housing permits that year alone. Springdale (84), Bentonville (73) and Fayetteville (59) followed close behind in the upper echelon housing business. Four years ago even smaller cities like Johnson (18), Lowell (14) and Cave Springs (14) saw expensive residential projects spike like never before. But that was then.

Philip Taldo, co-owner and broker of Weichert Realtors-The Griffin Company, seems agreeable to Wal-Mart’s influence on the region.

“I think it goes back to the fact that the vendor community would be more apt to buying homes in that price range than the rank-and-file population. I think if you look at the average income of cities, I would say that it would be slightly higher in Benton County than Washington County – thus more upper-end homes.”

Don Gibson, president and CEO of Legacy National Bank of Springdale, is not surprised Springdale’s numbers have fallen so far.

“I think [that business] will return at some point in time, but if you look at the demographics out there, the population is not showing growth like it was,” he said. “When I look at Springdale, we have negative job growth. When the population grows again, I think that will spur activity again.

“I’m seeing absorption taking place in Northwest Arkansas overall that is heading in the right direction,” Gibson said. “I feel the right things are happening in the market, although slowly.”